How to Live
by AlaudaArvensis
Summary: A story composed of a series of chronological plot-based FrostIron prompts from Loki's perspective, inspired by a list of one hundred reasons to stay alive. Or, Loki learns to appreciate the small things in life while trying to stay alive as Thanos threatens on the horizon, and the Avengers hang on for the ride.
1. Step 1 - Recovery

He rolled his eyes as he eyed the first item on the list Tony had given him. One word.

_Recovery_.

What a farce. He tossed the tablet aside. He still had nightmares, of course. Horrible nightmares with black and pain and terror, and he awoke covered in sweat and tinged blue. Tony had learned not to touch him when he was blue, and the thought made his chest seize. Instead, Tony sat with him, calling his name over and over and over again until he'd wake. (Well, not his name. One of those ridiculous nicknames the mortal was so fond of).

And his heart would race so hard afterwards, so hard that Loki at times thought it might explode. Again. Like when-

But he recovered. Wasn't that the same as recovery?

He shook his head, his mind twisting the phrase over and over again. The word felt odd in all-speak. Different. As though the meaning of the word was corrupted, impure, tainted when translated into the language of the gods. _Like him_, his mind whispered, not quite Asgardian and not quite Jotun, and tainted by his association with both.

He paced quickly across the room, then turned again to stroll towards the couch, his back towards the city outside. It was bright and cheerful outside, the last gasp of summer heat as the city prepared for the holiday weekend ahead, or as Tony had explained it, the last fling of summer before the season changed, when half the city would evacuate for one last weekend in the Hamptons before autumn set in.

"Jarvis, if you could please define the first item on the list? And pronounce it, in common English vernacular," he ordered.

"Certainly Mr. Lie-smith. Recovery. Noun. 'A return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength.' It is pronounced as 'ri-kav-er-ie'. Recovery."

Recovery. Recover. Re. Cover. Cover.

Recovery. What a stupid concept. Of course he was recovered. Well, physically at least. His health had returned, as had his strength. He'd seen the images SHIELD recorded of his arrival, the gaunt cheekbones and lanky black hair, and his eyes. Blue-tinted eyes that swiveled unsteadily back and forth as he carefully stood. He even had _looked_ crazed when he arrived. But had he been as crazy as he looked?

Tony certainly had thought so.

Loki paced again. It was disturbing to examine his memories, even in the bright sunlight of the penthouse, but needs must and all that. Would he ever truly recover in mind? Tony had been tortured too, and he still had nightmares, even though it was (by human years, of course) so long ago.

He sank into the couch, his head suddenly heavy as he rested his elbows on his knees. It was too hard, this living thing, it was so much easier just existing, just letting himself drift away into the ether, like a blanket of fog and ice and snow, and he missed (_fiercely_, though he'd never say it out loud, or at least not where a certain mortal genius might hear him) the peace that overcame him as he had fallen away from Asgard. The moment when he thought nothing would ever matter to him again, and he welcomed the oblivion. Welcomed it, and regretted it at the same moment, in a way he couldn't explain. He didn't want to die, but he liked the feeling of letting go.

Loki's shoulders twitched.

And that's the problem, he sighed. Something—or should he say, someone—mattered again. Someone had picked him up from the rubble, wiped away the dirt, and saw him. Saw what was underneath the shell and masks and pain. Someone noticed the bags under his eyes, that he hadn't slept—actually slept!—since he had fallen from the bifrost, since before The Other had found him-

No, he corrected himself. He didn't fall.

Maybe recovery meant he had to be truthful, despite his namesake, despite his reputation. Maybe he could just be truthful with himself, just this once, for Tony.

He had let go. He had let go, and tried, willed it, wanted to die at that moment, when he let go and watched as his world fell away. He tried to surrender, to give away everything of value and importance, even himself.

And for what? A father who could never love him as himself? A kingdom that willfully misunderstood and vilified him for his natural gifts, even before they knew he was born from monsters?

Maybe the first step to recovery is accepting that he had something to actually recover from.


	2. Step 2 - First Rain of Autumn

"It's raining!" Tony shouted, startling Loki from where he had perched by the window overlooking the penthouse balcony. He glared at Tony as the smaller man rushed over to his side. "Do you know what this means, Lokes?"

Loki studied him carefully. The mortal had bags under his eyes, deep purple in color. Neither had slept well last night. Loki had almost gone entirely blue before Tony had managed to wake him from another nightmare, and Tony had suffered a panic attack in the shower when Loki had accidentally splashed water in his face. But the man before him didn't look tired. He looked a little bit manic, as though the grin would split his face in two if he had anything more to smile about.

Tony threw a casual arm around his waist and Loki didn't flinch as the mortal rested his head on Loki's shoulder. "Step two." Tony said. "First rain of Autumn."

Loki blinked in surprise. He'd already forgotten about the list Tony had given him last week. The mortal had told him that it was a list of things to live for. Reasons to stay alive, he said. And you had to stay alive to check them off the list, one by one, and then at the end…

He didn't know what happened at the end.

But for now, as the rain bathed the city below in forgiveness and hope, he felt the fleeting stirrings of hope bloom against his sternum, an odd pressure welling up against the heat of Tony's breath on his chest.

"So it is," he said.


	3. Step 3 - Stepping on Crunchy Leaves

He noticed the smell first, the dampness that hadn't dissipated after the rain early that morning. The air felt cooler too, as though the storm had stewarded in more than just rain, but transformed the mood of the city as well. All around them, mortals shoved past to and fro as they scurried on their way, oblivious to the god and genius standing on the sidewalk in Manhattan. Well, almost oblivious. He was pretty sure that the guy with a camera a few streets back had snapped off a few shots of Tony as they hurried by, when Tony had adjusted his hat and had Loki hold his bright orange-rimmed sunglasses.

"This is stupid, Stark," Loki grumbled, and not for the first time.

"Shut up Prancer, you'll love it," Tony grabbed his elbow, steering him around an inconveniently placed trash bin. "There has to be a fucking tree somewhere around here."

Tony swerved suddenly towards a line of trees along the avenue, jerking Loki's arm as the god turned to follow. The trees were squared in shape, the remaining brown and red leaves manicured in perfect lines, and Loki looked up to see how high the tree limbs reached (fatal mistake, Tony had told him. Only tourists looked up in the city).

"Ugh," Tony prodded a soggy brown pile with his toe, "They're all wet. Let's keep going. The park's not much further."

Loki rolled his eyes, moving quickly to dart after Tony as the smaller man hurried across the street in a… what had Tony called it? A cross walk-way? He slowed once he reached the other side, and grabbed Tony's hood to pull the mortal back.

Tony grinned, slinging an arm around Loki's shoulder. "I'll buy you lunch after we find some leaves, Lokes," Tony said, and as he turned towards the god the bill of the mortal's baseball cap grazed Loki's head. The red cap and orange sunglasses looked out of place on the mortal with his nice jacket and designer jeans, but no one had bothered to approach them on the street, and for that, Loki was grateful. "But we gotta get you past step three! It's been almost two weeks!" Tony exclaimed.

"Stark, the only one obsessing about this list is you," Loki growled. "I do _not_ need to _live in the moment_, as you put it, my life is inordinately longer than an average mortal's, I will have_ plenty _of moments."

Tony stopped suddenly, and Loki felt a twinge of guilt, like in the early days of their friendship when Loki had pushed too far, said things he didn't mean to say to Tony, hurtful things, when he couldn't understand why the mortal had defended him, why the mortal had protected him against his friends, against all evidence to the contrary that Loki's intentions were as nefarious as the god had pretended when he first arrived on Midgard, filled with his supposed 'glorious purpose'.

But then Tony turned and Loki saw the hint of a smile on the mortal's lips, his amber eyes bright in the late morning sunlight, and that was all the warning Loki had before Tony changed directions again, charging off towards a patch of green.

By the time Loki had joined him in the small square, a green space stuffed in between two busy streets with a few park benches and a small copse of trees that had already shed most of their leafy cover, Tony had kicked together a pile of something resembling brown mush and had taken to tromping across the grass towards a pile of leaves underneath one of the benches.

"Okay Lo-Lo, this is the best I could find," Tony said as he returned, brandishing a pile of leaves carried in the crook of his arm with a flourish as he plopped down the small pile onto the sidewalk. "Step on these, and then we'll go eat."

Loki obediently stepped on the pile.

Nothing happened. The leaves didn't crunch, didn't make much of a sound at all, really. All he could hear were the nearby city traffic, and birds chirping in a feeding frenzy around a white paper bag left by one of the park benches (flying rats, Tony had called them).

"Well?" Tony prompted.

"The list said to step on crunchy leaves, not to step on a soggy wet mess of organic matter that may or may not have been leaves at one time, before it degraded," Loki retorted.

"Eh. We live in the middle of Manhattan, there aren't a lot of dried up leaves around here," Tony grimaced as he scrapped a clump of mud from his black dress shoes on the pavement. "Maybe I could fire a lower grade blast, get this mess to dry up. Or stick them into a kiln or something. With a lower flashpoint-"

"Stark, I'm fairly certain that defeats the point. Aren't these supposed to be innocent life experiences for you mortals?"

Tony scratched his head. "I bet I could refine one of my manufacturing welders into a low flashpoint heating unit, cook the leaves into a crunchy dry mat. But then the individual leaf wouldn't crunch, and the sound would be different."

"Stark, you are an idiot. Designing some device to modify the properties of organic matter, such that it may be properly enjoyed, violates the rules of the list."

"Since when did you care about rules, Lo-kitty?" He kicked at another pile, the soggy mess splashing in little droplets as his shoe slid across the surface, "Anyway, we're supposed to be frolicking in these things, not sliding."

"I'm supposed to be finding the smaller things in life to look forward to. By the Nines, Stark, if I have to shove leaves into a kiln in order to properly step on them, I might actually _try_ to jump off the bifrost again." Loki glared at the offending mess on the pavement, and shoved his hands into the pockets of the jacket Tony had procured for him.

"Loki," Tony's severe tone startled the god into looking up from the muck, and his shoulders tensed. "You aren't still… I mean, you're happy here, things are getting better…"

"Relax Stark," Loki flicked a newly fallen leaf from his shoulder; his jacket was damp underneath. "I'm not going anywhere."


	4. Step 4 - Meeting New Friends

"Hello!" a warm voice greeted him as he exited the elevator. "You must be Loki."

Loki froze, and his hands shook as he scanned the room. Seated casually on a barstool with her heels off and a glass of red wine in hand, the woman who had called out offered a casual wave, and Loki forced his feet to move as he surveyed the room. Aside from the unexpected visitor, the penthouse was empty.

She was well dressed in an understated grey pinstripe suit that was both professional yet feminine in cut, with a silky black top beneath the jacket, and her strawberry blond hair had been pulled into a loose bun. A pen dangled from the bun, as though she'd hoarded one away to sign documents during a meeting and had forgotten about it.

Didn't Tony say that the penthouse was private, that his teammates couldn't come to the floor without Tony's authorization? So, she wasn't an Avenger then. The woman sipped her drink, watching Loki above the rim of her wine glass as he paced along the wall. Her eyes crinkled in mirth, and Loki almost felt put upon, that his discomfort was something to be laughed at by this mortal.

"Miss Potts," he began, for it could only be her, "I wasn't expecting… that is to say, Jarvis didn't mention…Stark said…"

The woman laughed, and her eyes crinkled again. "Please, call me Pepper."

"Pepper." Loki managed, as he angled the kitchen counter between himself and Miss Potts, his hands twitching as he inched his way closer to the knife drawer, just in case. He couldn't remember if he'd ever done anything to hurt her, besides that whole throwing Tony out the window thing. But that was before, wasn't it, back when-

Loki shivered, and let his hands fall to run along the wall as he trailed into the kitchen.

"He didn't tell you I was coming over for dinner tonight, did he?" Miss Potts asked.

"Ah. No." With effort Loki placed his hands flat on the granite countertop. The cool stone withstood the force as he pressed his palms, hard, into the surface of the granite to stop his hands from shaking.

"Step four!" Tony chimed in from the living room, and Loki turned to glare in his direction. "Meeting new friends. Pep-Pep, meet Lo-kitty."

"Stark," Loki growled, "Again with that infernal list. And I thought I told you _not_ to call me that."

Tony grinned as he came into the kitchen with two tumblers half filled with an amber liquid. "And I told you to call me Tony. Guess we're even, Lo-kitty."

The mortal placed one of the tumblers between Loki's outstretched hands on the counter, and spun around to pull a tray from one of the warming ovens. Loki picked up the tumbler and cradled it to his chest, letting the smoking flavor of the amber liquid wash over his senses. Smells had a way of centering him when nothing else worked, and over the last few months of living in Tony's home, ever since he'd finally been released from SHIELD's custody, he'd come to enjoy the smell of Tony's beverage of choice. But when had Tony figured that out?

_Genius, remember_? His mind traitorously provided. He inhaled the scent again, letting the tension fall from his shoulders.

"Goddamn it Tony, it's garlic bread, not splitting a molecule!"

"That doesn't matter Pep-Pep, the slices should still be parallel." Loki looked up to see that Tony and Pepper were bickering over the proper way to slice through garlic bread, and Loki exhaled slowly, relieved to notice that neither had mentioned his inattention.

"Give me that, I'll cut it," Pepper reached for the knife.

"Hey, hey, hey! I invented an element, I can cut garlic bread!" Tony snarked, as he carefully measured and calibrated the width between the slices with an image projection from his mobile phone.

Loki laughed suddenly, a short burst of amusement that he couldn't control, couldn't stifle, and when he noticed Pepper watching him, he tucked his chin to his chest, letting his hair fall in a curtain around his face.

A hand snaked around his elbow and tugged the god closer, until his arm was pressed against Tony's. The warmth was overwhelming, solid, and Tony smelled like motor oil and something else, something potent.

"You like garlic bread, Lokes? Try it." the mortal asked, handing him a slice as though it was the most natural thing in the world, to eat garlic bread while drinking whiskey and standing in a kitchen with his best friend's other best friend and former girlfriend. (But they were more than just friends, right? Loki couldn't think about that now.)

He took the proffered slice and tasted it. The garlic flavor was strong but not overly potent (Ah ha! That's what he smelled on Tony!), and it was warm on his lips. Pepper giggled, and Loki belatedly realized he'd moaned out loud.

"S'good, isn't it? Told you." Tony bustled off to pull another carton from the warming drawer, and Pepper moved to another cabinet to plop three bowls and a serving spoon down on the counter. The two moved in quick efficient movements dishing up pasta and refilling wine glasses, before Tony grabbed onto Loki's elbow again and the three arranged themselves on the couches in front of the television.

It was hours later, as Loki lay half-dozing with his head resting on the back of the couch, eyes closed and sprawled out with his arms and legs in different directions, with his bowl on the coffee table after he had emptied both second and third servings, that Loki heard them talking. It was the soft clink of the second bottle of wine against a glass that had briefly woken him, but it was Pepper's soft words that caught his attention.

"He's different than I expected. More fragile."

"Yes," Tony agreed, and Loki debated whether he had the strength to protest. "But he's strong, and he's doing better. Better than I was, this soon after Afghanistan."

"Tony, it's almost been six months since New York." Pepper whispered this time, as though it was taboo to discuss the failed 'invasion' that Loki had brought down upon New York. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep silent, and he almost jumped as a hand came to rest on his ankle, stroking the skin gently in calming circles.

"He spent three months in SHIELD custody, Pep, before they'd believe any of it. That he was just as much a puppet as Barton. Worse, even. Barton quite literally had no free will, was just a puppet dangling on strings. Those fuckers gave Loki just enough rope…" Tony exhaled sharply, and Loki could imagine the mortal's face as he silently counted to ten. "It's only been since August that he could really let go, think it all through. You know how hard that is, that limbo."

"Yes," she said simply, but Loki got the impression that there was so much more to her answer than he comprehended.

He wanted to pay attention, to keep listening to the soothing murmur of Tony's voice as he talked about some planned modifications to the next Starkphone, he really did. But the last thing he remembered that night was something resembling fingers carding through his hair and a whispered "Nice to meet you, Lo-kitty."


	5. Step 5 - Seeing Old Friends

"Hey Lo-Lo, how do you feel about step five?" Tony had returned home earlier than Loki had expected, and Loki looked up, surprised. The shorter man had already showered the grease and oil from his hair, and the faint odor of his cologne drifted through the room, along with the scent of Tony's ever-present coffee. The mortal seemed to vibrate with energy as he bounded into the sitting room, in contrast to the dreary day outside. "I mean, you don't have to, but dinner last week with Pepper went so well, it just seems like it's a shame to be stuck on step five when there are so many more steps, and-"

Loki raised a hand to stop Tony's tirade, interrupting: "And what, pray tell me, is step five?"

"Seeing old friends," Tony said quickly, sipping his coffee to cover his expression.

Loki looked up from his book. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then slammed the book shut. The sound was not nearly loud enough to gratify the trickster. "Step five is pointless, Stark. I don't have any old friends to see, especially not on Midgard."

"Um. About that…"

Loki sighed, "Please tell me you didn't."

The mortal grinned as the elevator dinged. "It's movie night? I may have sort of invited the gang here. For pizza too, nothing fancy, you can sit on the couch next to me. I promise it will be fun. But hey, um, what do you say, Lo-Kitty?"

"Lo-kitty? Kinky, Stark! I didn't think you were a furry," a voice taunted from the hallway, followed by the sound of a slap and an exclaimed, "Ow! Nat!"

"Ha, ha, Barton." Tony absently flipped the bird in Clint's direction, his eyes never leaving Loki's face, "Go grab some pizza, we'll join you in a minute."

Loki grimaced, and dug the palms of his hands into his eyes. "This is going to be a disaster, Stark," he whispered. Hands came to rest on his shoulders, and Loki leaned into the touch, letting his head fall forward to rest on Tony's stomach. A gentle hand carded through his hair.

"If it's too much, I'll make them leave," Tony said, "It's just Cap, Natasha, and Clint tonight. Bruce is out of town."

Loki nodded carefully, relishing the graze of Tony's fingers, which had worked from his shoulders to scalp and now ran gentle patterns over his neck, not light enough to tickle nor firm enough to loosen the tension in Loki's shoulders.

"Okay," he muttered, and looked up to see the gentle grin Tony bestowed on him, and those warm brown eyes twinkling with some emotion Loki couldn't place, something that warmed his soul, made Loki want to try harder, to complete the goddamn list that Tony had become so obsessive about.

Loki followed Tony into the penthouse's entertainment room. Tony liked to joke that it was actually Loki's room, because it was only after that day in New York, when Tony had been faced with yet another renovation to his floor, that the mortal decided to transform the room that had been set aside as Pepper's office into an entertainment room, complete with a wall sized high end screen and three rows of stadium seating couches.

"Fucking finally," Barton snarled as the pair entered. "What'd you do, lose your tongue down each other's throats?"

"Don't be crass, Clint." Rogers scolded.

"What'd I say?"

"Knock it off, Birdbrain." Tony growled, as he handed Loki a plate with pizza already piled high. He maneuvered Loki into the couch furthest from Clint.

"I'm sorry, I just figured he must be giving it good if you close off your floor to your friends just because bag-of-cats here is going all rain-man. Ow! Nat, stop hitting me, god damn it!"

"Then stop talking," Romanova smiled at Barton, and it was all Loki could do not to flinch at her expression. Tony barked a laugh as Barton made the motion of zipping his lips shut, then wagged his eyebrows suggestively.

"Thank God," Rogers groaned, then turned towards Loki and Tony. "Hey Loki, how's it hanging?"

"How's it hanging?" Tony snorted, "Really, Steve? What, are you taking slang lessons from Urban Dictionary? No one says that anymore. Except Clint..."

"Hey!"

"And he means it sexually."

Rogers' face turned an interesting shade of red as Barton and Tony cackled, and Loki sank back into the couch. His eyes met with Romanova's, and she shared a smirk.

"Alright enough Tony, you've had your fun," grumbled Rogers, "Loki, Tony says you guys are making progress in the project you're working on, some thing-a-ma-bopper to detect pathways?"

And before Loki could answer him, Barton chimed in, "Oh come on Cap, we're not talking about this now, are we?" Barton groaned, "If I wanted to learn something I'd watch the history channel."

"Didn't they just show that mermaids hoax film?" asked Tony between a bite of pizza. "Totally not true. I lived in Malibu. I'd know if there were mermaids."

"So what are we watching?" Romanova asked, clapping her hand over Barton's mouth before he could reply. "It's Tony's turn to pick, Clint, and I'm not watching another supposed 80's cult classic that no one has heard of besides you and Jarvis."

"Jarvis, surprise us," Tony ordered, "Something lightweight and funny, without hysterics, but new to Cap and Loki."

"Very well sir."

"But not too romantic!" demanded Barton, "Don't want lover boys to get distracted!"

"Clint!" Rogers and Romanova shouted at the same time, and Loki hid his smile behind a bite of pizza. He licked his lips, clearing the pizza sauce that had stuck to the corner of his mouth.

It bothered him, if he thought about it (and he really tried not to think about it), how everyone assumed he and Tony were, well, together. Because they weren't, not really. Or not like that, he should say. Tony was just… well, Tony. After New York, when Thor had wanted to take Loki back to Asgard, he had all but given up. It was the bifrost all over again, except this time he knew no one in Asgard would ever listen, would ever believe him.

And right there, in front of his friends, Tony had thrown down the metal case, donned the suit, and tackled Loki away from Thor just as the All-Father opened the pathway to Asgard.

Tony later told him that it was something in Loki's eyes, the way Loki had looked around the plaza at each of the Avengers, that had finally convinced the mortal that his theory from watching SHIELD's earliest surveillance videos was true. He just knew, he said. Loki looked like Tony, when the genius was trapped in that cave in Afghanistan and ordered to build the terrorists weapons… or die.

The first month in SHIELD's custody was the hardest. It was as though a switch had been thrown, and that final release that Loki had anticipated, the knowledge of what waited for him in Asgard (for surely it would be death, the All-Father would not let this stand), had been taken from him. He refused to speak with anyone but Tony, no matter how they cajoled him, no matter what they promised, no matter how many times the Black Widow smiled at him through the glass (but they never tortured him, never hurt him… at the time Loki didn't understand it, kept waiting for the first blow, but now he was fairly certain Tony had something to do with that). And even after they consented, and Tony sat across from him in that infernal glass room, he spent weeks giving flippant responses and toying with the mortal. But the engineer never waivered, never got upset with Loki's antics, until one day Tony walked in with a box of donuts and opened the door to the glass room.

Loki would never forget that moment, when the cocksure mortal stepped into his prison cell, alarms blaring in the background, and handed him a box of donuts. Jarvis must have done something, because when Fury and the others arrived, pounding on the door for all they were worth, Tony just sat himself down in a chair and carried on as though he and Loki were the only two people in the entire universe.

The movie that Jarvis had selected seemed to involve a lot of mortals making idiots of themselves as they stumbled through life looking for happiness, and there were references that he didn't understand, but he wasn't the only one. The group kept pausing the film as Tony and Clint worked to clarify questions from Rogers about the movie, and Loki helped himself to another slice of pizza from the box closest to Tony. He could get used to this, he thought. Everyone had been rather understanding, eventually (except for Barton), and the human capacity for second chances never failed to amaze Loki.

That morning, Tony told Loki about Afghanistan. Things he had never told anyone, he said. About Yinsen, and his, as Tony put it, ongoing 'thing' with water. And then he told Loki that he already knew, that someone, somewhere, somehow had gotten to Loki before Loki got to Earth, and Tony was going to prove it, with or without Loki's cooperation. It was almost too much. Loki hadn't said a word, just sat there, until his hands started shaking, and then he remembered screaming, screaming for hours and hours, and Tony just sat there, talking to him, talking him through it.

When SHIELD released him a month later to his probationary period on Midgard (Earth, his mind chimed in, he lived here now, might as well try to act like a local), Tony had shown up in the most ridiculous sun glasses, escorted the god to his car, and driven him straight to the tower.

That they ended up sleeping in the same bed most nights because of Loki's nightmares (and Tony's too, if Loki was going to be honest) was purely accidental. And showering together, also not actually all that sexual. When Loki had first arrived at the tower, it was as though the world had been lifted from his shoulders and he suddenly had the space and time to shut down (before the list, Loki huffed in realization, damn Stark for that). He stopped eating, stopped bathing, stopped moving for almost two weeks before Tony had donned a suit and bodily carried him into the shower. That they continued to occasionally shower together, usually when Loki had drifted off into a temper or had a bad night, and Tony had to threaten him with the suit, well…. Tony was comfortable. Safe, even.

It'd not taken Loki long to realize that he had let his guard down with Tony, that the mortal had begun to take liberties that Loki hadn't afforded to anyone in years. The first time Tony had thrown an arm around his waist. Put a hand on his shoulder. Ran his fingers through Loki's hair after a shower. Loki closed his eyes, swallowing the wave of anxiety. Sure, the mortal was attractive. And fascinating. More fascinating than he had any right to be, honestly. And Loki wasn't exactly going anywhere any time soon, what with the dual Asgardian and Midgardian probationary period. But what if Tony wanted more? What if he wanted more, and Loki wasn't ready?

Would he ever be ready? Did it bother Tony, that Barton teased him about Loki, how did he say it, performing sexual favors for Tony? Was that why everyone thought he'd moved into the tower? What if Tony tired of him, wanted him gone from the tower, was tired of the nightmares, of the goddamn fucking blue skin that was too cold to touch during those nightmares, wanted Loki out of his life like his own father-

No, Loki thought, Odin was not his father, ha ha, wasn't there some terrible daytime television show he'd stumbled across last week in which mortal men celebrated when informed they are not the baby's father, Odin should go on the show, he didn't deserve to be thought of as father, not anymore, not after…

But his mother, Frigga, she- and-

Was she still his mother?

"Whoa!" Barton exclaimed, "is he turning blue?" and Loki whimpered suddenly, his shoulders curving as his arms crossed protectively over his stomach.

"Alright guys, it's been real, but get out." Tony's voice was close, and Loki leaned towards him, a whine escaping his lips before he could muffle it. He heard the elevator ding, and then it was silent except for Tony's muttered words and those infernal nicknames.

"Shhh, Lo-Lo," the voice said, "Shhh. I'm not sure where you are right now, but you're safe. You're in the penthouse at the tower, and we're watching the world's worst rom-com ever made, shhh Lo-kitty, you're safe now. Come on Lokes, talk to me."

And Loki looked up into Tony's concerned face, then slowly willed the blue to fade from his hands. As soon as his color evened out, Tony handed him a tumbler of scotch, and Loki sniffed at the liquid.

"Was it the movie?" Tony asked, "or just too many people? We can try again next week with just the Cap, maybe that will be better. He's a good guy, Lokes, you know I won't let anyone up here who would hurt you."

"I know," Loki replied, but it didn't sound convincing even to his own ears.

Tony wrapped an arm around his shoulders and tugged Loki to lean back against his body. "Talk to me Snowflake."

Loki pulled the tumbler to his chest and let the scent wash over him. "Does it bother you? That everyone thinks we're…."

"That we're…" Tony prompted.

"Together. Sexually." Loki mumbled.

Tony chuckled quietly. "That's what caused your panic attack? Because Barton made crude comments and you had an existential crisis?"

Loki tried to stand. "Forget I said anything, Stark. Of course not."

"Hey, hey," Tony tightened his grip on Loki's shoulders, and Loki relented. "If it bothers you, we'll talk about it. Um, what is it, exactly, that bothers you? I don't… I mean… I can't help if I don't understand why you're upset. It bothers you that Clint jokes about it? You know I don't care about that, Lo-Lo. Yes, you're a sexy goddamn bastard, I mean, er, okay so maybe bastard isn't the best of word choices here. What I mean is that I'm, uh, attracted to you, um, but that's not why you're here, it's not going to change anything. You'll still have a place here, at the tower. I just want you to get better, to feel more like you, you know-"

"Tony, stop talking…" he turned to look at Tony to see the mortal slack jawed and looking at Loki as though he held all the secrets in the world, with wide brown eyes brimmed in tears, and Loki felt his heart clinch. "What's wrong, what did I say?"

"Did you," the mortal gaped, and licked his lips in a nervous gesture, "Did you just call me Tony?"

Loki couldn't help himself. He laughed.


	6. Step 6 - Waking before your alarm

It was Tony's screams that woke him, and he shuffled down the hall, groggy and bleary eyed towards the mortal's bedroom.

He found Tony twisted inside his sheets, so tangled that his arms were pinned tightly against his sides, with one ankle dangling off the bed and the other kicking wildly at the blankets. For not the first time, Loki missed his strength, the brute power granted by his Asgardian form (or was it Jotun? Traitorous sleep deprived thoughts), locked away for the duration of his probation. Along with most of his magic, but that, Loki didn't care too much about for now. Without magic, he didn't have to perform for SHIELD, didn't have to do tricks to earn his keep on Midgard.

But now, the sheets were a problem, because he couldn't untangle Tony, and shaking the genius's shoulders only made his tremors and screams worse. And he couldn't just lift Tony to find his way through the tangled sheets, or rip the sheets off all together.

Finally, Loki managed to pull at one of the corners, loosening the coverings enough that one arm slipped free, and for his trouble he was rewarded with a smack in the nose. Loki grunted, cradling his face. It hadn't been hard enough to break anything, but it smarted. He checked his palms. Clean, so it wasn't bleeding.

Good. The one time Tony had accidentally given him a nosebleed, the mortal had spent three days apologizing and afraid to even come near Loki at dinner. Which was funny, considering Loki had thrown the man out a window only six and a half months ago.

"Jarvis, lights at seventy five percent," he called. The room brightened, and Loki studied Tony's face, still twisted in pain with his one free arm flailed wildly, looking for purchase against the silky sheets. Incoherent phrases poured from the mortal's lips, and Loki could see a thin sheen of sweat across his brow.

"Tony," he said again, shaking the mortal's shoulders, careful to stay clear of his arm. "Tony. It's not real, whatever you are seeing. Tony, wake up."

It was no use. Wherever Tony was, he was too far gone to hear Loki's pleas. So Loki did the only thing he could, what Tony had done for him time and time again. He called his name, again and again, and waited. Except unlike when Loki had nightmares, Tony didn't turn frostbite blue, and Loki kept a firm hand patting Tony's side.

Finally, Tony quieted, and a moment later, he pulled his other arm free from the sheets, and sat up.

"Fuck," the mortal whispered, and Loki moved to sit beside him. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. Sorry I woke you, Lokes." He turned to look at Loki, his eyes were red-rimmed and angry tear-tracks still littered his cheeks.

"Afghanistan?" the god asked, and Tony shook his head. Loki sighed. If it wasn't Afghanistan, it was New York. And Loki felt the unfamiliar twinges of guilt tighten around his lungs, an emotion he had never experienced so often in all of his time on Asgard as he had in the last few months he'd spent on Earth.

Loki leaned into Tony's side, letting his head fall to rest wearily on the mortal's shoulder. He waited as Tony's breathing evened out, as his heart calmed to a normal pace, and then he felt Tony's shoulders finally relax.

"Jarvis, time," whispered Tony.

"It is 6:37 AM."

"S'early still, Lo-Lo, just stay here." Loki felt Tony's arm come around his shoulders, "Wait. Jarvis, what's on tap for today?"

"Sir's alarm is scheduled for 7:30 AM, with a follow-up appointment for Mr. Lie-Smith with Agent Hill scheduled for 9 AM at SHIELD's headquarters. Sir also has a meeting with R&D scheduled for the afternoon."

Tony chuckled, and Loki looked up to see what the mortal has found so entertaining.

"Step six, Lokes." Tony smiled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Waking up an hour before your alarm goes off. Now we have to get up. How do you feel about pancakes, I think I can make pancakes? Jarvis, can I make pancakes?"

"The last three calls to the Malibu fire department say otherwise, sir."

"I bet I can make pancakes today. You'll help me, right Lokes?"

Loki groaned in response, but moved to stand as Tony untangled his legs from the sheets.


	7. Step 7 - Beautiful Sunsets

The door clattered open with a bang, startling Loki, and he leapt up from his chair and spun around, only to find Tony standing at the entrance to the stairwell and huffing for breath. As Loki watched, the mortal hunched over, and rested his hands on his knees, the engineer's harsh wheezing echoing across the rooftop.

"Tony?" Loki asked. "What's wrong?"

"Jar- Jarvis said- he…" Tony wheezed, and Loki's brows furrowed. He took a few careful steps towards the shorter man. "He said you were up here. Wanted to see me… fuck, I need to start running again or something."

As Loki reached his side, Tony coughed suddenly and sagged against Loki. The god made a startled noise, eyes widening, as though Tony would fall over or expire that very moment, and honestly, it wasn't that wild a speculation considering how the mortal's lungs seemed to constrict with each gasp.

"S'okay, just less…. lung capacity. Reactor." Tony thumped his chest, and Loki put an arm around the mortal's shoulders and guided him towards the lawn chairs.

"Did you…" Loki sniffed, Tony still smelled of oil and something burnt, he had clearly come straight from his workshop. "Did you actually run up the three flights of stairs? Why? I told Jarvis it wasn't urgent."

Tony sagged into the chair, and took the water Loki handed him from the blue cooler, then the mortal blinked, and studied the cooler more carefully. "Is that the one Clint was complaining about the other day, that had gone missing?"

Loki grinned, "It wasn't me. Rogers brought it up here. He showed me how to get out here, too."

"What?" Tony exclaimed, "Why the fucking hell would Steve do that?"

Loki settled into the lawn chair next to Tony. "Am I not allowed out here, on the roof?" he asked. "I did not think it was off limits, as Rogers comes up here to sketch sometimes."

Tony rubbed his forehead. "Lokes, no, you can come out on the roof. I just don't understand… okay, look, it's like this, I know you're used to being indestructible. I mean, that fall from the plane when Point Break showed up, that was sort of epic. But right now, while you're on probation, you are as fragile and mortal as the rest of us. And the last time you were this high up, or higher, I guess, don't really understand the physics of that, you, um, sort of had a death wish."

Loki looked at his hands. "You thought I was thinking of jumping."

"All Jarvis told me was that you were on the roof, and had been for some time. I don't, er, that is to say, Jarvis doesn't have any eyes up here. I didn't fucking know why you were up here. I didn't know."

Loki fumbled with his water, and looked up to find Tony studying him intently. "So, you ran up the stairs because I… scared you?" he guessed.

"Damn straight you scared me, you asshole! Jarvis doesn't work up here, and I came home to find you'd gone to the roof!"

"I'm sorry?" Loki ventured, his brows furrowing in confusion.

Tony sighed. "Fine, whatever. Um. I guess I overreacted. Remind me again, why we're on the roof? And sitting in plastic lawn chairs that I'm fairly certain I did not purchase for my modern marvel of architecture?"

Loki smiled, and gestured to the western sky, painted oranges and blues and pinks as the sun sunk lower on the horizon. "Step seven, you idiot."


	8. Step 8 - Shooting Stars

"Oh come on Snowflake, it will be fun. And then you'll have one more step completed. I can fly us there in the suit, it will be quick. I know a good picnic spot in Jersey that should be far enough," He turned the screen towards Loki.

"For the last time, I don't want to go see the meteor shower," He pointed to a peak on the screen. "That one seems like it's artificially generated, it's too regular, are you sure that's not interference? It doesn't look like how matter moves on Yggdrasil."

"I'm sorry, did you just say it doesn't_ look like_ how matter moves on Yggdrasil? What, are you going to tell me you can hear its frequency now too? Maybe we should calibrate you to sense these things instead."

Loki shrugged. "There is a hum to the bifrost. And I am calibrated to find the pathways, when I have magic."

Tony hummed, as his fingers flew over the keyboard, cutting out the source of the interference. "We could just go up above the city lights to see the show. Don't have to go out to the country, if that's what-"

"Stark…" Loki grumbled.

"Oh, so now I'm Stark again, huh Lo-Kitty?"

"Goddamn it, Tony. I don't like looking outside at night. It's too black, even here. It reminds me of the void, of the time between when I jumped off the Bifrost and landed_ there_." Loki's fingers clinched in tight fists, and he tensed when Tony leaned forward to rest his head on Loki's arm.

"Okay okay, I'm sorry. We'll just draw a picture and pretend it's a shooting star. With glitter maybe, I don't know."

Loki rolled his eyes. He'd learned last week what glitter was, quite by accident, when Tony had decided to demonstrate some childish art project that he thought Loki should try, something that involved making Rorschach test samples with glue and glitter. Needless to say, the battle that occurred afterwards may have required Tony to invent a more efficient suction vacuum to clean the penthouse carpets of glitter.

"Tony? Loki?" Rogers called out as he entered the workshop. "Are you guys in here?"

Loki looked up briefly from the monitor. Of course it was Rogers that came down to check on them in the workshop, after the pair had been working non-stop for almost two days, Loki mused.

"Back here Cap!" Tony shouted, as he handed a calibrator to Loki, "Alright tall stuff, hit that top nodule once more and let's tweak it, it's shaking up there more than I'd like, but if we change the frequency of that node, it should even it out."

Loki reached over Tony's shoulders towards the railing of the scanner. Tony's original design had called for something smaller, almost portable in shape and size, but scaled down that size, the device couldn't handle the energy spikes while registering shifts in the fabric surrounding earth and the first design had spectacularly exploded. Tony had been more upset that "watching fireworks" wasn't on the list he'd given Loki than he had been about the device actually exploding on them (and they thought Loki was the crazy one).

The rebuilt version mimicked the size and shape of the portal entrance to the bifrost but was powered by a miniaturized arc reactor, a design that Tony's computer modules had shown would be most likely to channel the energy sufficiently to scan for openings in the space-fabric without actually creating a pathway into the laboratory.

Or as Jarvis had said, "It appears this design structure is less likely to create a wormhole than to simply explode. Again. Sir."

If it worked—and, Loki grimaced as he twisted the calibrator into place and waited for the click-click hum of the frequency change, that was a big if—the readings should provide a way to monitor the pathways to Midgard without actually journeying on those pathways. This wasn't, after all, an Einstein Rosen bridge. It would just look for Einstein Rosen bridges. Maybe. Hopefully. If it didn't explode.

"I thought you guys were taking a break from this thing after last week's fire alarm," Rogers said, nodding to the device behind Loki, "and why does it look more and more like a portal every time I come down here?"

"Because humans have limited capacity for imagination?" Loki smirked, and Tony barked a laugh, "Check the vibrations now, Tony."

Rogers rolled his eyes but handed Loki a green mug, and Loki looked up to see Tony inhaling the contents of a similarly designed red mug.

"Thanks for the coffee, mom," Tony muttered, and Loki smirked at Roger's exasperated expression. "The vibrations look good now. Less vibrate-y. Steve, if you're going to stick around, super-soldier or not, you have to put on some goggles. You can wear the pink ones Loki refused to wear. And you too, Lokes, no damaging the fragile god while on probation. Scout's honor. And we're all going to go hide," Tony pointed to a large metal table he'd upended on its side, blast marks scorched into its surface "behind the blast wall."

Rogers looked at the table, then at Tony, and turned to Loki. "Is he serious? I thought he'd be slightly more responsible with you down here to watch him."

Loki took another sip of his coffee and shrugged in response.

"Hey!" snapped Tony, "I'm responsible! I made a blast wall! Now move it or leave, Capsicle!"

The three hunkered down behind the table, and Tony handed Loki the tablet linked to the output readings. Loki watched the monitor as Tony tweaked the energy levels, and prepared for a sixty second test.

"Dummy, be ready in case this one explodes too. Alright, test one of the PPD, Mark 2, 60 seconds. Activating on my mark…. Three. Two. One. Mark!"

An eerie blue light not much different from Tony's reactor tinted the light of the room, accompanied by a high pitched hum, and Loki heard Rogers whispering in amazement as the super-soldier peeked over the edge of the table while Tony was laughing with glee beside him.

"Stable. No power fluctuations. Checking output." Tony muttered, tapping furiously at the controls.

Loki looked back to the tablet in his hands. He knew Jarvis was recording and processing the data, but Loki watched as the static motion readings on the tablet stabilized, then shifted again, and stabilized. Without data points, Tony had said that it would be impossible for them to tell what the output meant, not until they could compare the readings with the data SHEILD had on New Mexico, but underneath those readings, there was another line forming, something that Loki wasn't so sure was related.

"Tony?" Loki said, then a little louder when Tony didn't respond. "Tony!"

"What, huh? Whatcha got Prancer?" Loki pointed to the small thread beneath the background noise, and Tony hunched over next to him.

"Huh. It's not a pathway, not enough energy based on the readings on the portals we've seen. It's more like…. a thread? Like a long cord. But what's it attaching to? Look at this resonance here, it acts like it's a pathway in the energy signature, but it's deactivated. I thought that wasn't possible. Lo-Lo, didn't you say that the pathways wouldn't show up when not active?"

Loki went numb, a tingle traveling down his spine and across his shoulders. A cord, down one of the hidden pathways, not active but attached, and not detectible but for the over-powered device that Tony had created.

"Shut it off! Shut it off! SHUT IT OFF!" Loki screamed as he threw the tablet to the ground, blue skin spreading outward from his fingertips. Tony scrambled to kill the power output, his fingers furiously racing across the control panel, and the light flared blue for a moment before falling away and the workshop florescent lighting illuminated the room.

Loki's hands were shaking, and he willed the blue to not spread past his elbows, his breaths coming in rapid pants as Tony hovered by his side, hands brushing carefully against Loki's hair and neck. Rogers had ripped off the pink test goggles and braced himself in front of the table, as though he expected the not-actually-a-portal to suddenly transport someone into the laboratory, and through the rushing noise in his ears, Loki could hear Rogers talking to Romanova over his comm.

"Fuck Loki, what's wrong? Lokes? What is it?" Tony said, "Jarvis, pull the last readings and put it up on holo."

Loki whimpered as Jarvis displayed the energy readings; on the holo, the background noise showed up as a three dimensional static line that rose and fell like a mountain range, with the sharp reading variations in the fabric of space due to the proximity of the sun, but the solid blue line all but hidden in the background noise on the tablet stood out sharply. It wasn't on the same frequency as the background noise, and it didn't fluctuate.

"Shut it down Jar." Tony whispered, carefully putting an arm around Loki's shoulders. The blue had faded, but only just, and Loki leaned heavily into Tony's chest. "It's him, isn't it," Tony asked.

"Yes."

"Him what? Tony, what the hell is going on?" Rogers demanded, and Loki heard the workshop's doors slide open, the quiet clicking of heels on the floors telling him that Romanova had arrived.

"Team meeting, Cap. Probably need to tell SHIELD too. Fuck it, let's just go visit Nicky-boy, this will make his day."

"What, already? You just tested the damn thing."

Tony pulled Loki to his feet. "We think the static line on the test frequency is like a tracking device, a sliver of a connection maintained at too low a frequency to pick up or reverse. And unless there's anyone else hanging around Earth with a pissed off intergalactic asshole mad at them for a failed invasion…"

Rogers crossed his arms. "In English, that means that whoever it was that tortured Loki prior to sending the Chitauri invasion… is still tracking him?"

"Yeah." Tony said, "And we don't know what happens if that tracker line gets powered up."

"Right. I'll get the jet," Romanova ordered, "We leave for the Helicarrier in ten."


	9. Step 9 - Holding Hands

Loki let his forehead rest on the table, just for a moment. Beside him, he could hear Tony's soft snores; the mortal had sprawled out in the chair the moment Agent Hill had stepped out, and the genius's eyes had fallen shut mid-sentence.

Loki had lost track of how many hours it had been since he last slept. He hadn't been this tired since… well, it had been a while. He remembered napping on the couch in the workshop, when Tony was tracking down a power flux issue, but that was at least a day ago. Before Rogers brought them coffee. Before the first test.

Before Loki knew The Other could find him again.

Loki inhaled sharply, and held his breath, counting slowly behind his closed eyelids. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. He was safe. Tony was less than a foot away. They were on the helicarrier, surrounded by SHIELD agents and the Avengers (and since when did that qualify as safe?).

The door to the conference room opened again, but Loki didn't move. Rogers was still in the room, and Tony was beside him, he was safe. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

"Why the fuck are the wonder-twins sleeping on my conference table?" a gruff voice barked, and Loki tensed as Fury shouted. "Stark! Wake the fuck up!"

Loki turned to watch as the sleeping genius lifted a one-fingered salute in Fury's direction without opening his eyes, and in his exhausted delirium Loki giggled at the indigent sound Fury made.

"Don't give me that bullshit, Stark. We gave you quarters here so I wouldn't have to see your stupid ass drooling on my furniture. Take your sidekick and go, Hill's working on the data and there's nothing more I need from you little shits right now. You've already given me enough trouble for one day."

Tony groaned but sat up, nudged Loki in the side. "Come on Lokes, we're not wanted here. Call me if anything comes up, Cyclops."

"Get. Out."

Rogers clapped Tony and Loki on the shoulders as they passed by, and Loki thought he could hear the super soldier mutter something to Tony, but he was too tired to care. The mortal took Loki by the elbow and led him down the corridor.

Tony's quarters on the helicarrier were small, even by human standards. In the corner was a storage unit designed by Tony himself for the suit, and a bed that folded down from the wall. The bed was not quite full sized, but Tony shrugged off his hoodie and shoes before crawling into the pillows. Loki sat carefully on the edge, and looked around the room. It was all gray and military lines, nothing soft or welcoming, and Loki was tempted for a moment to leave Tony to his rest, for surely getting some air on the upper deck and seeing the sun would be better.

But then there was a pressure on his wrist, and he turned to see Tony pulling at his arm, pulling him towards the pillows.

Loki kicked off his shoes. Tony had bought him something he called 'kicks,' made by a craftsman named Converse, and for some reason Agent Hill had found the sight of Loki wearing the shoes so hilarious last month that Loki made a point of always showing up at SHIELD in a pair. Slowly, he dragged himself toward the pillows and rested his head near Tony's. The hand encircling his wrist hadn't loosened as the god laid down, but rather had tightened as Tony tucked Loki's wrist still encircled by his fingers against the mortal's chest.

"Lights," Tony mumbled, and the room fell into darkness. The muted reflection of Tony's arc reactor lit the space between them, and Loki blinked once, twice.

"Say it, Snowflake." Tony whispered, "I can feel you thinking too hard over there."

Loki sighed. "It would be wise to send me back to Asgard if the The Other is tracking me."

"No."

"But-"

"No. You yourself said that they wouldn't understand. That no one would believe you, about what The Other did. Not an option. We already had enough trouble getting the probation terms approved. All-Daddy can go fuck himself."

Loki tried to pull his hand back, but Tony tightened his grip. The pressure wasn't painful, just solid and tight, like a security blanket wrapped around his pulse point.

"But The Other will come after me. Eventually."

Tony turned his grip on Loki's hand to entwine their fingers. "Maybe. And we'll be ready. But you don't know that he wouldn't come after Earth anyway. Hate to say it, Lo-Lo, but this one isn't all about you. And whatever happens, we'll get through it." Tony reached out with his free arm and pulled Loki closer, tucking the god's head under his chin against his shoulder, entwined fingers flitted between their chests. "For now, sleep. Coffee can't even fix this level of tired. And that's like sacrilegious, to the great and sacred gods of caffeination. Only gods I worship. Though I've thought about reviving some of the old Norse legends, you know, there's supposedly this god of mischief that's kinda awesome."

Loki chuckled tiredly but didn't pull away. "Goodnight, Tony."


	10. Step 10 - First Kisses

It was several days after Loki had tacked up a Rorschach-like glittering image that sort of looked like a star with streaks behind it, if you squinted and looked closely, that he cornered Tony in the workshop.

He hadn't been down to help Tony out since they had first activated the Portal Detection Device, which Tony had taken to calling the HERB Finder ("It stands for 'Help its an Einstein-Rosen-Bridge'! It's genius! Shut up Loki!"). And now, while SHIELD determined what to do with this new information, the HERB Finder sat covered by the sheet Tony had thrown over it upon their return.

"Stark, you read this list before you gave it to me, right?"

"Yes, Lo-Kitty." Tony's legs were visible from underneath an ancient-looking contraption, an older looking red automobile that Loki could barely imagine riding in for fear of rattling his brains out in, but he'd learned the hard way that the mortal was overly fond of his collection.

"Why, what's next?" Stark asked.

"Step ten, first kisses."

A metallic clang and a muffled curse echoed from underneath the car. Loki bit his lip to hide his grin.

"So I'm curious, then." Loki teased, "Did you read the list all the way to step ten? Because it seems that I remember a particular someone only a few weeks ago telling me that he found _me_ attractive."

"I believe my exact words were 'goddamn sexy bastard,' but in my defense you were having a bit of a meltdown. Couldn't tell you that you're ugly and smell like poppy seeds when you're going blue on me."

Loki huffed a laugh and sat down on the floor beside Tony's legs. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, Stark. For one, Rogers told me what poppy seeds are, so you can stop telling me I smell like them since they don't smell."

"Correction, Lo-Lo. Cooked poppy seeds on hamburger buns do not smell. Poppy seed tea? Very much smells. Steve has not been to… well, anywhere interesting except when they were shooting at him during the war. So, Mr. Getting-My-Pop-Culture-References-from-the-Capsicle, for your information, it very well does smell. Like you."

Tony used his feet to edge himself out from the car, and looked over as Loki handed him a grease rag. "Thanks," he said, wiping his hands. "And aren't you still on step eight anyway?"

"I spent a whole ten minutes on that ugly shooting star picture on the icebox, did you not notice? Should I next time tape it to the espresso machine?"

Tony barked a laugh. "Refrigerator, not icebox. Are you hanging out while Steve sketches or something? I'm going to have to have Jarvis start correcting him before he corrupts you."

"Stop avoiding the issue, Stark."

Tony dropped the rag and moved to sit against the car beside Loki. "Lokes… I don't know what you want me to say. I gave you the list, no expectations attached. Like you said before, it's supposed to be innocent life experiences. It's supposed to be about finding experiences to enjoy or good memories. I dunno."

Loki hummed thoughtfully. "So, I could go ask Romanova for a kiss, and that would qualify as step ten? It doesn't have to be anyone in particular, just a first kiss?"

Tony coughed, surprised. "Uh. Sure. If you have a death wish." Tony froze, then turned back to Loki. "Okay, that was badly phrased, because if you have a death wish again, we have to talk about that. But it should I guess sorta be someone you're comfortable with? Or not. We could go clubbing, kiss a few college co-eds, promise to call them, and then get pizza. Not that I've ever done that sort of thing. Of course not."

Loki watched as Tony fiddled with the toolkit beside him, placing various silver objects inside the box after he swiped the grease from the surface of each tool. His movements were controlled and methodical, patiently placing each tool into an apparently indicated spot, and Loki watched the efficient movements even while the mortal rambled on. His hands had become oily again in the process, and Tony absently wiped a thumb across his jeans, leaving a streak of black across the dark blue denim.

"But kissing Nat, not the best of plans." Tony continued, "She and Clint have some weird thing going on. Don't ask about that, by the way, they get weird. And I kept finding nasty shit in my air ducts. I mean, seriously, who the actual fuck buys stink bombs after middle school? And Clint's just now starting to get over the whole mind control thing. Oh fuck, we should not be discussing this out in the open. Clint will totally kill me. Jarvis, where's Clint?"

"Mister Barton is presently in the ductwork between his floor and the communal living space."

"Again? Goddamn it Jar, I thought we closed that off. Where is he getting in?" Tony grumbled, reaching for his tablet on the tool bench, tapping the screen to pull up a holo of the tower's blueprints. "Jarvis, order me some of those electric wires, like the kind they use in invisible dog fences. And some gray conductive tape that matches the vents."

"Sir, the wiring used in invisible yard perimeter control for animals requires that the animal wear a collar. Shall I order one in Mr. Barton's size as well?"

When Tony paused to consider the idea, Loki crouched in front of the mortal and took the tablet from his hands. Tony looked up with wide eyes, and Loki leaned forward, taking the mortal's chin in his hand, and kissed him. In a moment it was over, and Loki stood up.

"Step ten," the god smirked.

As he walked toward the elevator, he heard Tony mutter, "Jarvis, did I just fall asleep? Am I sleeping?"

"No sir, you are very much awake."

"Fuck."


	11. Step 11 - Catching Snowflakes

It couldn't last, of course.

It was foolish for him to think, even for a moment, that he could find a place with the strange humans he had found himself stranded with, abandoned to by his so-called family. It was too much to ask for protection from The Other, Loki knew that. He knew that, and yet…

Loki brushed the glass from his palm, wincing as the shards embedded deeper in his cuts, and looked around the remnants of the room. The fancy TV in Tony's entertainment room lay in pieces, smashed beyond recognition in a fit of temper, glass and electronic bits littering the floor, and Loki was fairly certain the faint coppery smell was the blood pooling in his hands rather than anything electrical, but he couldn't see it in the dark of the room and couldn't be bothered to ask Jarvis.

The AI had been suspiciously quiet, which Loki knew was not a good sign, and he should probably prepare himself, pack a bag. For surely they would send him back to SHIELD now. Or back to Asgard, whenever Thor deigned to drop in again or Heimdall bothered to check in on Asgard's number one ex-prince on probation. Tony surely wouldn't want him to stay now.

The evening began innocently enough.

Loki had joined Tony and a few of his teammates for something that Tony had called a game night. Apparently Midgardians (because fuck calling it Earth if he was going to be kicked off the planet, that's what) took pleasure in sitting around a table drinking ale and moving small pieces across a board based on the fates of small cubes with dots. The game of choice for the evening was a strategy game known as Risk, one of Rogers' favorites. And he'd sat down with Tony, Rogers, and Barton, and things had gone okay until he'd captured Barton's forces, and the man had turned a particular shade of white before he casually mentioned his meeting at SHIELD that afternoon.

He said: "Fury wants to send bag-of-cats back to Asgard. Because why should we have to fight off another fucking invasion on his behalf."

"No," Tony had said automatically, and Barton had chugged his scotch, then leveled a glare at Loki.

"Tony, cut him off from that." Rogers gestured at the scotch, and Tony moved the scotch bottle out of Barton's reach.

"It's not up to you, Stark," Barton smirked. "Besides, he seems recovered from all this bullshit. Look at him, winning at Risk! Maybe we should just hand him over to this dude that wants him, save Earth or Asgard or whatever the trouble."

"That's enough Clint," snapped Rogers, "We don't hand over people for torture in this country, regardless of their past crimes. Loki's already on probation both with Asgard and Earth, and you know as well as I do that his actions on Earth weren't his own. Stop being a jerk just because Loki took your forces out of the game."

Barton shrugged. "S'not right, is all."

"What would you have me do?" Loki had asked above the noise of Tony's muttered curses beside him. "What price is enough, Barton? You were his puppet for a mere few weeks. I spent almost two years as their _guest_. Would it satisfy you to know about my time there? Would even that be enough for your little revenge fantasies?"

"Loki, you don't owe this little shit anything. C'mon, we're done." Tony's voice had a pleasant sounding slur to his words.

"Maybe I would," challenged Clint. "Do me good to hear about it. What'd they do, punch you a few times? You and Tony fuck while talking about how terrible waterboarding was?"

Tony slammed his glass on the table and charged at Barton at the same time Rogers reached across the table to stop him, upending the game and scattering the pieces.

"You're a sick fuck, Clint," Tony said, shaking free of Rogers' grip on his arm. "Come on Lokes."

"All I'm sayin' is that you'd feel differently if they show up and say, we'll not fuck up your entire world if you hand over bag-of-cats. S'not like he's human or anything. Or Asgardian, right?" Clint hiccupped. "Can't have human rights, eh? S'not human."

"Oh that's right, you _humans_ are so noble, so _honorable_. I've watched your news channels, you do terrible things to each other." Loki spat. In one swift move, Loki swept the game from the table, sending pieces and dice flying around the room. Tony reached for his arm but Loki jerked away, his shoulders tensed as Barton casually flicked off a few game pieces from his shoulder.

"And yet for all of this, these pathetic destructive tendencies that humans seem to excel so well at, you have no idea what's out there. You have _no idea_ what's waiting for you. You think I'm a monster, Barton? You think I'm a monster for trying to find just the tiniest bit of relief from pain beyond the likes of which you can even imagine?"

"You probably deserved it," Barton smirked, his eyebrows raising as he remembered something, and with a gleeful cackle he added, "Didn't Thor say that you tried to kill a whole planet? Probably worth a few deaths for all that…"

"And I was the Merchant of Death, and your best friend's a master assassin, Birdbrain!" snapped Tony. "Maybe not the best person to be casting stones, you little shit-"

"I lost count of how many times." Loki said plainly.

Tony's mouth snapped shut. "What?"

"How many times I died, I lost count. Times that I _thought_ I was dead, or that I wouldn't survive. Only to be brought back from the brink, to wake up again in The Other's chambers again, covered in blood and foulness and just wishing, _begging_, again and again that they would let me die. I don't remember how many," Loki choked, "how many times I was certain that this was it, that I would finally be left to die this time, that there was no possible way I could survive my heart exploding in my chest, or my-" Loki gagged, "my skin forced blue and cut piece by bloody piece to see how large a section of my skin, or my muscles, or bone, or vital organs, or anything they could cut away and remove, before my magic couldn't compensate, couldn't heal me, and to finally fall unconscious from the pain and have that last fleeting moment of thinking, this is finally the end, no more, that-"

"Lo-Lo," Tony reached for his arm but Loki flinched, and the mortal hesitated.

"If SHIELD sends me back to Asgard, so be it. The Other will come for me there too, if the All-Father doesn't kill me first. It doesn't matter. Is that sufficient, Barton? Or would you like to take a pound of flesh as well?"

This time Tony didn't hesitate, grabbing onto Loki's shoulder as though he was going to pull the god into his arms, and Loki snapped at the sudden movement. Before the god registered what he had done, he had slammed his elbow back into Tony's jaw, and shoved the mortal hard into the wall, with one hand tightening around the mortal's throat.

Tony went boneless in his arms, and the sound of rushing water surrounded Loki until he slowly realized just who he'd thrown against a wall, and felt Rogers' hand resting gently on his shoulder, telling him to release Tony. And Tony just watched him, frightened bronze eyes in brilliant contrast with the calm expression on his face and placating words coming from Rogers' mouth.

"Loki. Let him go. It's okay, you're safe. Let him go." Rogers said, and Loki relaxed his grip around Tony's throat, before he dropped his hands and stepped away from Tony. The mortal inhaled sharply and moved to straighten his spine as he leaned on the wall, and Loki looked at his fingers. They were pale, no blue had seeped into his skin, and before Rogers could call SHIELD to revoke his probation, Loki fled.

His subconscious registered Tony calling after him, and Roger's shouting at Barton, but all he could see was red, red, red. Until he had sat back on his heels and realized the red was from his hands, and he'd destroyed Tony's entertainment room.

"Lights, Jarvis," a voice called from the doorway, and Loki looked up to see Tony crossing the room with a first aid kit in hand. He tsked as he kneeled beside Loki, and gently took his left hand into his own. With quiet efficiency, Tony took tweezers to the glass in Loki's cuts, and bandaged his palm. After repeating the process with Loki's right hand, he scanned the god for any other injuries, before tilting Loki's chin upward.

Loki closed his eyes in shame. "Sorry about your entertainment room, Stark."

The mortal chuckled quietly. "Well I did say it was your room didn't I? Not sure you have much of a future in interior decorating though."

Loki started to laugh despite himself, but it choked off into a half-formed sob before he could control it.

"Oh, Lokes," Tony said, "We're not sending you back. You hear me? You're not going anywhere. Barton was out of line. Way out of line. If Steve gets his way he's going to be running laps until he's dead."

Loki nodded, not trusting his voice. He shifted forward to examine Tony's throat, and the mortal caught on. "Ah. You didn't hurt me Lo-Lo. No bruises, it's fine. See? We're good."

Loki sat back. "How can you possibly say that, I threw you into a wall."

"At least it wasn't a window?" Tony chuckled halfheartedly, "Too soon?"

Loki rolled his eyes. The man was incorrigible, how he had survived this long was beyond Loki's comprehension. But he gave a short nod. If Tony was willing to move past it, Loki would too.

"Yeah? Good. Now come on, we've got a special treat outside." Tony said, tugging on Loki's elbow.

"Outside?" Loki staggered to his feet.

"Yup," Tony said, popping the sound of the last consonant in a way he knew bothered Loki. "It's snowing. Just little flurries, not sticking. So, in honor of how terrible game night has gone, we're going to instead catch snowflakes on our tongue, cross step eleven off your list, and then get Jarvis to make us hot cocoa. Solves everything. Promise."


	12. Step 12 - Fresh Baked Cookies

"Sir, Captain Rogers is requesting your presence in the communal kitchen if you are not otherwise engaged."

Loki sighed, placing his StarkTab on the couch. "Did he say why?"

"No sir, he only inquired as to your current location and present activities, Mr. Lie-smith."

"Where is Barton, Jarvis?"

"Mr. Barton departed the tower at 6 AM this morning, sir."

Loki stood and stretched his arms out over his head. He'd slept terribly the night before, of course. His nightmares were nothing new, but apparently mentioning even a part of his memories from his stay with The Other had left the door open for other horrible experiences he had worked hard to put behind him and to forget. But his subconscious apparently had other plans.

After the second time Tony had woken him from his night terrors, the god had given up on sleeping in his own bed and trailed sleepily after Tony as the mortal took him into the kitchen for a scotch, then pulled him into Tony's larger bed and tucked his head into Tony's neck like that night they'd spent cramped together in Tony's quarters on the helicarrier.

He'd feel weird about that, actually, if it hadn't been so comfortable. And maybe that should be weird too, that it was so comfortable.

And now, it had been several hours since Tony had disappeared into his workshop for the day. As had become his pattern, Tony had asked Loki to come assist him with one project or another and Loki had declined. It wasn't that he believed the proximity to the HERB Finder would renew the connective thread to The Other, but rather Loki didn't like to be reminded of his impending doom by the seven-foot tall machine draped in Tony's spare bed sheets.

"Sir?" Jarvis enquired.

"Very well. Please tell Captain Rogers I'm on my way."

He supposed this was to be expected, that there must be some fallout from game night. Might as well see what the Captain had to say. He quelled the growing knot in his stomach with the memory of Tony's words the night before, that Rogers was displeased with Barton's behavior. That Tony said they weren't going to kick him off the planet back to Asgard. But Rogers was the leader of the Avengers, and well regarded by SHIELD. And, for all his money and influence, Tony wasn't.

It had been Rogers' consent that SHEILD asked for, before Loki could be released to serve his probation under the supervision of the Avengers in Tony's tower. It was Rogers that SHEILD turned to when Fury had deemed Tony too biased by his own experiences to really know if Loki was telling the truth.

He straightened his spine and crossed his arms as he stepped out into the communal space of Tony's tower, affecting a disinterested mien as he strolled into the kitchen.

"You asked to see me, Captain?" he said, eyes casually scanning to see who else was about in the kitchen. The room was empty with the exception of Rogers behind the granite countertop with a mixture of packages and bowls surrounding him. The Captain looked up and gestured to the barstools lining the counter.

"Hey Loki. Grab a seat, unless you want to help?"

Loki sat down in the seat closest to the elevator, and glanced around. "I'd offer to help, Captain, if I knew what you were doing?"

Rogers' mouth upturned at the edges in an expression that Loki had come to learn meant the Captain was awkwardly amused, most prevalent when someone corrected his phrasing of a modern term or piece of technology. The man ran a hand through his blond hair then gestured at the packages on the counter. As he touched each package lightly, he named the contents for Loki.

"Flour. Butter. Eggs. White and brown sugar. Baking soda. Vanilla extract. Salt. And last but not least, chocolate chips. All the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, an old earth favorite. My mother used to make these, for special occasions." The Captain smiled again.

Loki leaned back in the stool, opening his mouth to respond before his jaw snapped shut, and he turned to study Rogers as the man carefully cracked the eggs against the rim of a glass mixing bowl.

"You are…" Loki grimaced, uneasy with the warm feeling spreading across his cheeks. "You are baking cookies?"

Rogers shrugged. "Tony sent me a text a few hours ago, mentioned the next step on your list was freshly baked cookies. And you know how Tony cooks."

"Ah. Yes." Loki grimaced again, remembering the blackened pancakes that Tony had tried to make, before Jarvis had asked Rogers to come rescue Tony before he burned down the tower. His shoulders tensed as he realized that Rogers knew of the list—had he read the list too? Did all of the Avengers know about this supposed list?

"Thank you, Captain," he said instead.

"Steve."

Loki swallowed uncomfortably. "Steve."

The blinding smile Loki received in response almost made his discomposure worth it, and he watched in silence as Rogers mixed together the butter, sugars, vanilla, and eggs, before stirring in the flour mixture and chocolate chips. As Rogers began spooning the dough onto two trays, he glanced up at Loki and cleared his throat.

"Um. Tony told you last night that we're not sending you back to Asgard no matter what SHIELD wants to do, right?"

Loki gave the Captain a short nod.

This was it, he thought, he'd let his guard down again, it was stupid to think the informality that Rogers had requested in his address was not part of a larger plan. Certainly the next thing Rogers would say was that until The Other threatened earth, he'd be welcomed to stay, but the needs of the many would outweigh the needs of the few, or in particular, the needs of humanity were more important than what happened to Loki.

And the great and noble Captain America was going to say he was ever so sorry, but if it came down to the Earth versus Loki, he would choose the earth. It wasn't anything new, Loki supposed. Asgard had certainly never considered Loki's needs above those of the kingdom, and Loki could think of several times when he had to do something reprehensible to pull Asgard from the proverbial fire, not the least of which often included unanticipated consequences for Loki.

He was so caught up in his thoughts, that he almost missed what Rogers said next, as he slid the trays into an oven.

"Good. Because that goes for all of us. The Avengers, I mean. We're not going to let anyone get to you while you're vulnerable without your magic, SHIELD or the All-Father, or the Other-whats-his-name and his boss. That's not how things works in America, at least not in _my_ America, it's not right. Doesn't matter what Clint says."

Loki looked down at his hands, wringing them together in his lap. It was one thing to hear Tony say it, Tony who had seen through his act so easily when he first arrived, under the thrall of The Other and tainted by his rage and hurt and hopelessness from his time in captivity. But for the alleged moral compass of America to agree with Tony?

It was overwhelming.

"Loki? You understand what I'm saying, right? "

Loki looked up to see that the Captain had settled into the chair beside him, with a device that made ticking noises resting beside him on the counter.

"Yes, Capt- Steve. It's just that…" Loki sighed, "I'm sorry, it's going to take some adjustment to accept this." Steve nodded, and Loki barked a short laugh, "I thought you were going to say- well. Something else entirely. You realize your position is not logical? I've repeatedly told Tony that it makes sense to send me back, if The Other or his master are to come looking for me."

"Maybe it is. But humanity has a great capacity for making decisions based on what is right instead of what is easy."

"So I've noticed," Loki deadpanned.

The ding of the timer startled both men from their thoughts, and Rogers grinned as he went to take the cookies from the oven. After moving them to a cooling rack, he pulled the milk out of the fridge and poured two glasses. Grabbing a few of the first batch to cool, Rogers sat the plate of cookies in front of Loki, then carried over the glasses of milk.

"Here you go, step twelve. Have to do it right you know. Cookies and milk. Ancient earth tradition."

"Ancient?" Loki teased.

Rogers grumbled "Not you too, Loki. I already have Jarvis now correcting my words whenever I refer to something in 'old fart vernacular,' as Tony puts it."

Loki chuckled, and tried a cookie. The chocolate melted on his tongue, warm and flavorful, and he thought there might be something to Tony's obsession with this list of things to see on Earth after all.

"Good?"

"Very much so," Loki agreed.

"I'm glad." Rogers grinned as he took the last one from the plate. "And if you want any more, you have an errand to run first."

Loki tensed. "An errand?"

Rogers jumped from the chair and pulled out another platter, this one Loki recognized as the unbreakable plates that Rogers tended to bring down to the workshop. While piling cookies onto the platter, Rogers flipped a button on the coffee pot and the familiar smells of a redeye brewing filled the kitchen.

"You get to deliver the rest to the workshop." Rogers said, after the coffee machine finished its brew cycle. "Stop avoiding that monstrosity hidden underneath the cover and help Tony figure out how to shut down activated pathways instead."

Loki swallowed hard, but nodded, accepting the plate and picking up Tony's redeye.


	13. Step 13 - Digging your toes in dirt

"Brucie!" Tony shouted from across the workshop, and Loki's head shot up from where he had been fiddling with the device Tony had concocted that morning, his fingers twitching so abruptly that he lost the frequency Tony had been monitoring.

"Did you grab the items I asked for, Brucie Bear?"

Loki watched as the mild-looking mortal picked his way across the detritus of the laboratory, and he quirked an eyebrow as he saw what the man was carrying. Under one arm, Dr. Banner had tucked a plastic sack with green writing, and nestled against his hip in the other arm he held a plastic gray storage bin with multicolored flowers peeking out over the rim.

"Yes, Tony," Banner sighed. "Where should I put this? And you promised me this was relevant to whatever new thing you're working on, but all I can see is pizza boxes and an uncovered HERB Finder. And what's with the upgraded security? I've never had to buzz into the workshop before." Bruce turned to see Loki, still hunched over behind a desk next to Stark's newest creation.

"Oh. Loki's down here," Banner said. Loki nodded carefully to Banner, his expression as neutral as possible. For a moment he thought he could see the man's frown, before Banner nodded his greetings and turned back to find Tony. "Security makes sense now. So I take it Clint is still being childish?"

"Not childish, an actual five year old," Tony said as he rushed around the lab collecting various electronic monitoring devices and a StarkTab.

Banner spun in place as he watched Tony, and smiled easily as he took in the state of the workshop. "So, when's the last time either of you two slept? Steve mentioned something about sending down cookies two days ago and that neither of you had been seen or heard from since. You know this sort of thing just reinforces Fury's new nickname for you two."

"No time for that, read these," Tony said as he grabbed the gray tray and plastic bag from Bruce, and shuffled the tablets into his waiting hands. "Lokes, over here, you're with me."

Loki stood up and followed Tony over to the corner of the workshop, near the cleaning bot's charging station, and sat down on the table as Tony removed what looked to be plastic containers of dirt and potted flowers from the gray storage bin. The mortal then ripped open the plastic bag and began dumping its contents into the bin. Black dirt with a thick, rich smell spilled forth, and Loki sniffed curiously as Tony began to pat down the dirt firmly into the bin.

"Stark, what are you doing?" Loki finally asked, his curiosity getting the best of him.

Tony grinned, fishing out a spade from one of the plastic plant tins, and handed it to Loki. "Get down here Lokes, we're going to plant these around the edges of the tub."

Loki knelt beside Tony and watched as the mortal carefully dug out a small hole for each flower before carefully removing the plant and placing it in the hole. Loki took one of the packages and planted the flowers around the rim of the tub, imitating Tony's efficient movements.

When the twelve flowers had been placed in a circle around the rim of the tub, Tony dusted off his hands and grinned. "Okay, take your shoes off, and get in."

Loki chuckled suddenly. "Step thirteen? You are ridiculous, Stark."

"Less talking, more toes in dirt."

Bruce looked up from his reading. "You're kidding, right? The closest garden center with bags of dirt is all the way in the East Village. You owe me cab fare, Tony."

Tony waived him off and looked expectantly at Loki. The god sighed. "You aren't going to let this go, are you?"

"Nope." The genius popped the 'p' on the end and Loki grimaced.

"Very well," Loki slipped off his Converse and stepped into the dirt. He wiggled his toes. "Satisfied?"

"The list says to 'dig your toes into the dirt' not 'wiggle your toes while glaring contemptuously at your best friend.' Dig down a bit, Lo-Lo!"

Loki growled, "Stark, this is stupid. It's a bin of dirt, in a workshop, with cheap Midgardian annuals."

"He's got a point, Tony. That sort of defeats the intended purpose. Of course if you stop in Central Park to remove your shoes and dig your toes in the dirt, bad things happen."

"Just do it, Lokes. I'll buy you ice cream later."

Loki rolled his eyes but then dug his toes into the dirt. It was warmer than he expected, as though the plastic bag had been left to warm in the sunshine before Bruce purchased it, and the dirt was moist against his skin. The sensation almost reminded him of mud-baths on Vanaheimr. Almost.

A warm hand grazed his elbow, and he jerked his eyes open, unaware that he'd lost himself to the memory. Tony stood before him with a ridiculous grin on his face, gentle brown eyes looking up at the god. Loki gave the mortal a faint smile.

"The feel of the dirt, it reminded me of a good memory. A trip to my mother's-" Loki cleared his throat, "to Frigga's homeworld when I was a child."

Tony smiled. "Good."

"Tony, I think I need you to walk me through this." Bruce's voice from across the workshop was soft, as though he had witnessed a shock and couldn't quite understand where or what he was experiencing. "The math is right, but you already knew that. But the theory behind this, this is big..."

Tony threw Loki one of the clean grease rags as he headed back towards Bruce. "It's the frequency of that anomaly we found on the HERB Finder, but it's like nothing we've ever seen. It sort of mimics an ERB, but it's not an ERB."

"First of all," Banner said as he took a seat on the couch, "that is the stupidest name, ever, and I think you only like it because it's a play on the pronunciation."

"You know me so well, dear," Tony grinned, "but look, it registers on both ends of the spectrum. Here's what's interesting – the readings from New Mexico are fully formed, from the arrival of Thor, his buddies, even the data points we think are when Loki visited."

Tony flipped up several diagrams on the holo. "See these? These are Foster's data points, what she hypothesized to be Lorentzian in nature, but because of the light particles and wavelengths observed, it proves up the Morris-Thorne theory of traversable wormholes held open by a spherical shell of exotic matter."

Banner signed and rubbed his forehead. "Exotic matter? Remind me again what that's supposed to be? I know we looked at this when we were looking for the Tesseract," Banner threw a self-depreciating smile at Loki and the god shrugged as he rejoined them, seating himself on the chair next to where Tony had perched on a metal stool, "but I admit it didn't impact much in my research on gamma radiation so I didn't dig any further."

"Energy. Pure energy, in some form." Tony sat down on the stool next to Loki's desk. "Specifically something powerful enough to reverse the polarity and create the tunnel effect. The size is determined by the source and, if Foster's theories are correct, the neck is finite."

Banner considered this for a moment, before he sat straight up on the couch, and looked at Loki with wide eyes and exclaimed, "Shit! Loki, you son of a bitch!"

Tony cackled merrily beside him, and Loki turned to look at Tony then Bruce. The pair had identical expressions bordering between awe and excitement, and Loki didn't know what to make of any of it. He'd helped Tony walk through his theoretical understanding of how the bifrost and other pathways accessible via his magic worked, but once the mortal had started translating those ideas into Earth-specific scientific terminology, Loki hadn't followed along.

"I'm… sorry?" he asked.

"No, no, don't be sorry Lokes," Tony said, placing a hand on the god's shoulder, "Just answer this question, if you can remember, since it was," Tony waived a hand dismissively, "back when you were under the influence, so to speak. When you had Selvig build the portal on my tower, why didn't it syphon the entirety of the Tesseract's power? Why did it only take a tiny bit of the energy within the Tesseract, just enough to open a portal but not enough to create a larger hole in the space fabric?"

Loki scowled, picking at a fingernail. "I had Selvig build the device based on the power output of that scepter instead of the Tesseract, of course, since at the time we didn't have the Tesseract. And your mortal readings couldn't tell that the power differential was that vast, considering that the scepter was made from the Tesseract's output, so it was easy to hide the error. Magically, the readings were the same but the power was nuanced. I was suicidal, Tony, not completely insane."

"What?" Banner asked, "But the Tesseract was inside that thing."

"Yes," Tony said, as he squeezed Loki's shoulder; the god clamped his hands together in his lap to hide how terribly his fingers were shaking, "But that's the point. It was built only to channel a particular amount of energy. It would have eventually exploded under the full Tesseract's energy, even if Nat hadn't overloaded it. Is that right, Loki?"

Loki closed his eyes, "I had rather hoped it would explode sooner than it did, but The Other took more interest in Selvig than in Barton, so it would have been too obvious."

"And he could have tightened his reigns on you then," Tony put a protective arm around Loki's shoulders, and Loki sagged into the mortal, "Seen what you were trying to do, if he got further in."

"Yes. And then it would have been truly hopeless to escape."


	14. Step 14 - Listening to the Wind

Loki's fingers tapped across the table as he glanced around the room. He wished desperately that SHIELD hadn't called a meeting for today of all days, when Tony was stuck at a shareholder's meeting all day. Of course that hadn't stopped the mortal from trying to cancel the meeting at the last minute, when Fury had demanded Loki's presence for an afternoon debriefing, but Pepper's response had been… well, Loki smirked, let's just say it was probably in Earth's favor that Pepper was a force for good in the world, because her creative threats had shocked even the tower's resident god of mischief into stunned silence.

And here he sat, waiting for Fury to deign to appear at the supposedly urgent conference he had demanded. And Loki hadn't even thought to bring a book or his StarkTab to work on while he waited.

Rogers paced around the circular conference table, his usual khakis replaced with something Tony referred to as 'yuppie pants' that made a sshh-sshh sound as the man paced.

To Loki's right, Banner tapped away at his Starkphone, the light of the phone reflecting on the man's glasses what appeared to be schematics for the device Tony decided to call the Disco-Bolo. From what Loki understood of the rapid-fire conference call the genius had set up with several colleagues a few days ago, the Disco-Bolo detected the wavelengths of the pathway that the HERB Finder had found.

Agent Hill, as usual, preceded Fury's arrival, and Loki quirked an eyebrow as the Agent entered and her eyes immediately went to his footware. He stuck his foot out further as she came to stand beside the table, studying his shoes.

"Really Loki? Black and green now… wait, does that say 'Dept. of Metal' on the side?" she shook her head, and let out an exasperated sigh. "Where the hell is Stark finding these?"

Loki smirked. "Internet mail order. As the last time Tony tried to take me shopping in the city and out for lunch, SHIELD so rudely interrupted."

Hill took her place across the table and waved at Rogers to sit, as she pulled up her screen on the table surface, tapping out commands. "Yes, well, if I remember the outing correctly, you violated the terms of your probation so that Stark could make you step on wet leaves. Had it been anyone else making such an outlandish excuse, we'd have not believed it, but Stark has ways of being difficult that even we don't comprehend."

"An intelligence organization that doesn't understand a genius? How ironic," Loki said.

"Your punk ass shouldn't be making comments about our intelligence organization." Fury called out as he strolled into the room, startling Loki. He thought he hid the twitch in his shoulders well, but Rogers glanced at him with a furrowed brow and claimed the other seat to Loki's left.

"Captain Rogers, Banner, to what do we owe the pleasure? I don't remember asking you to attend this meeting." Fury paced slowly around the room.

Banner smiled as he put away his phone. "That's right Director, you didn't. Tony asked us to come with Loki, since Tony's tied up all day at the Stark Industries annual shareholders meeting. But you couldn't have possibly known he'd be unavailable today, of all days, when his very large and very public company holds its annual shareholders meeting."

"Do I look like a secretary to you? I don't keep track of Stark's schedule. But since you are here anyway, let's make a few things clear." Fury leaned forward over the table, fixing his one-eyed gaze on Loki, and Loki raised his chin. "I don't give a damn what Captain Rogers has told you, but Barton's right. As long as the asshole you worked for,"

"Forcibly-" interjected Loki.

"As long as the asshole you _allegedly_ forcibly worked for is tracking your location, your presence is a danger to _my_ planet. And if it were up to me or to the Council, your crazy ass would be on a one-way ticket to Asgard or the center of the sun, anywhere besides Earth. But unless your alien brother-"

"_Not_ my brother," Loki interrupted again.

"-shows up to retrieve Asgard's trash, we're stuck with you. So until that day comes, I want to know everything about The Other, about Thanos, about where you supposedly spent two years after leaving Asgard. I want to know what The Other eats, how he takes a shit, what reality TV shows he watches. _Everything_. Including what he's capable of and all the ways he tried to kill you."

"Director!" Rogers interrupted, his cautious glance not lost on Loki.

Loki pulled out the Starkphone Tony had given him, and clicked on the side button. "Jarvis, please make a note for me. I'd like to count Director Fury's current rant as step fourteen on the list, 'listening to the wind.'"

Fury's shouts of "List? What list?" drowned out Jarvis's response, but Loki knew the AI had gotten the message.

"It's of no importance, Director. Or rather, it's of importance only to me. And I've already told you everything I recalled of my stay with The Other. I won't discuss those matters again." Loki sniffed, examining his fingernails as though the conversation had ceased to entertain him.

"You _will_ discuss it again, or have you forgotten the provision of your parole, the one that says you will answer _any _and _all_ questions from SHIELD?" Fury shouted.

"I hate to be a buzz-kill Director, but you do realize that just yesterday Tony found actual evidence based on the New Mexico readings from Thor's first visit that Loki's telling the truth about New York?" Banner said, pulling out his phone again and punching a few areas on the display.

"Wait, what?" Rogers asked.

"He proved that Loki's portal-making device was rigged to explode on its own, and kept the size of the portal intentionally small, limiting the invading force. All under the nose of The Other."

Agent Hill's eyebrows shot up, but Fury continued. "Not good enough. I want details. Barton said The Other tried to cut of your skin piece by piece. Why? What did he want? What did he ask you to do?"

"He didn't want anything! He didn't _ask_ anything of me!" Loki spat, "I was kept half dead for years before he even spoke to me, before I even knew who it was that took me to within inches of death, only to _yank_ it away like the proverbial carrot!"

"And when you almost died," Fury continued calmly, "How did he bring you back to life again? You told Barton you actually may have died, numerous times, but in my experience, you Asgardians aren't all that easy to kill. You aren't some abomination of alien parts and DNA now, are you?"

"No, I'm just as much an alien now as before my stay with The Other." Loki said, his voice unsteady. His heart sped up, and Loki willed his fingers to relax, placing his hands on his legs as he dug his fingers hard into his thighs to stop the shaking.

"So how did you survive? _What_ did you survive?" Fury punctuated each question with a pounding fist on the table.

"Everything. I survived everything." Loki said simply. "Think of something terrible that you humans have done to one another. Imagine the worst torments you can possibly invent with your pithy minds, and it was worse than that. Worse than anything I've read about human atrocities."

"I find that hard to believe. Humans are pretty creative, _when _we need information."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Banner said, standing up. "I don't really think that's necessary, Fury. I mean, I just told you that Tony has proof-"

"Stark is a child with a new toy." Fury countered.

"What does it really matter what happened to Loki?" Rogers said, "We already know he didn't act of his own will, what good is it to know what happened?"

"Because. I want to know what kind of monsters are out there, looking for our friend here. And whether they will take what they came for, or want more."

Fury smiled, and Loki felt sick, as though he was watching the human version of that vicious beast he'd seen during the television program that Tony had called 'Shark week'. The beasts swam in rivers of blood after a kill, and the show had invoked nightmares, the memory of similar teeth too easy to visualize against the red of the water.

All Fury needed was blood on his lips; the feral grins were the same.

Rogers argued with Fury, but Loki couldn't understand his words any longer. He thought he could see Banner ducking out of the conference room, his shirt rippling in strange waves as though the beast within fought for dominance, and Loki whimpered, leaning forward as he felt the memories pressing in from all sides.

And red, so much red, and black, and vibrant, sickly yellow of infections, these colors he remembered well. The black of the void as he fell had nothing on the time that followed. Falling was easy, quiet, like waiting for the inevitable to finally catch up, and he couldn't think after a while as he fell, couldn't remember why he had thought letting go was better than staying in Asgard, except that he would see red whenever he thought of Odin, thought of his betrayal, of never being good enough, of never being enough.

He couldn't see his hands in front of his face anymore, were his eyes even open? The pounding in his ears drowned out everything else, but some small creature whimpered nearby, and he could see it all, every time he'd died, every terrible thing that he'd tried so desperately to forget. The one time that The Other had decided to see how long Loki could survive without food. The time when The Other had Loki flogged with primitive tools until his back and legs were shredded beyond recognition. Then the time he decided to do that _again_, but let the infected wounds fester until the smell of his own skin left Loki vomiting up his meager rations.

There was a warm pressure on his shoulder, and Loki cringed, waiting for the blow.

What was he waiting for? Was this a new game The Other played at? The warmth was inviting, rubbing small circles now on his back, and above the cacophony of the rushing sound in his ears he thought he heard a soothing voice calling his name. But no one ever asked his name. No one cared who he was or where he was from. No one spoke to him, hadn't for years.

"Loki, you're safe. Shhhh. I promised you, we'd protect you, remember? You're safe. Loki can you hear me? God, Tony's going to flip his wig about this. You're safe, Loki. We do what is right, not what is easy. Remember?"

Loki exhaled, releasing the tension in his lungs as his hands went to his face, rubbing at the wetness trailing across his cheeks. "Steve."

He heard the whoosh of the man's exhale as the hand still rubbing his back faltered, but then Rogers squeezed his shoulder. "That's right. It's Steve. We're alone in the conference room at SHEILD. Actually, we're leaving as soon as you're able. Happy's outside waiting."

Loki opened his eyes. The conference room was empty, innocuous now that Fury had left, and Loki scrubbed at his face. "Let's go."

Back at the penthouse, he found Tony watching a movie from the living room couch, three fingers of scotch already poured in two tumblers on the coffee table.

"You're home early," Loki muttered as he slumped into the couch.

"Bruce called Pepper," Tony handed Loki a glass. "I think Pepper likes you better than me. I never got out of meetings when I had panic attacks."

Loki inhaled, letting the familiar scent wash over him, centering him, before he took a heavy sip. The scotch burned over his tongue, smooth and warm and lighter in texture than what he was used to in Asgard, but rich and inviting.

"Wanna talk about it?" Tony asked.

Loki shook his head, taking another sip.

"Want me to see if I can buy SHIELD? Or at least price how much it would cost to put a hit on Fury?"

Loki finished his scotch, and slumped sideways, letting his head rest on Tony's leg. If Tony noticed that his hands were shaking, he didn't say anything to Loki as he pulled the blanket from the back of the sofa over Loki's shoulders then tangled his fingers in Loki's hair, as the gentle scratches against his scalp lulled Loki to sleep.


	15. Step 15 - Singing your favorite song

When Loki arrived at the workshop that afternoon, he first noticed that Tony's usual heavy metal music selection had been altered. Instead, Tony had playing a sound that could only be described as more acoustically inclined than his usual selections. Culturally, Asgard stalled thousands of years ago; the ballads performed at the present day were the same as when Asgard had last taken an interest in the humans' Nordic culture. And Loki had always hated the traditional sounding Asgardian instruments, with their horns and pounding timber, but Earth offered an entirely too broad of a selection. Steve had introduced him to jazz a few weeks ago, and Tony's heavy metal and rock and roll had become almost a necessity when Loki attempted to concentrate in the workshop, but these sounds were almost lyrical, filled with pain and joy and such fleeting human emotions, as though someone had updated the old ballads against modern Earth instruments.

"Lo-Lo!" Tony called, his hands covered in grease and with huge panels of the HERB Finder opened beside him. "Come sit down, watch the Disco-Bolo and tell me when it spikes. Also, keep an ear out, you need to pick a song."

Loki smirked as he sat down and adjusted the screen for his height. "Let me guess Stark, this is another item on the list?"

"Not precisely, sir," Jarvis interrupted. "The list requires that one select a favorite song from the radio, but Mr. Stark does not care to access the local radio stations. So I've taken the liberty of selecting the top twenty songs from current popular music charts and intermixing those with several songs based on an algorithmic calculation of what audio stimulation has appealed to you during your stay in the tower based on visual and physical stimuli present-"

"Okay Jarvis, he gets it." Tony said.

"As you wish, Sir."

"So Lokes, just pick a song, and, um, sing it."

Loki chuckled, "Sing it? Jarvis, could you please recite step fifteen in its entirety for me. Tony's under the impression it requires singing."

"Hey! It does!" Tony protested as he twisted a rather large looking wrench into the machine.

"Sir is correct, Mr. Lie-Smith. Step fifteen is indeed 'singing to your favorite song on the radio'."

"Damn," muttered Loki. "Alright Jarvis, modify the selection to limit it to those that will match my vocal range and reduce by those that are close to my algorithmic choices, and send the lyrics for those that are ranked highest in similarities to my tablet."

"Very well, Sir."

Loki looked up to find Tony staring at him with a dazed expression, his work monetarily forgotten and a lump of grease smeared across the mortal's cheek. "What? Did I stutter?"

Tony grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. "It's sexy when you talk algorithms to my AI."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, Stark."

As Tony clanged away at the HERB Finder modifications, Loki, keeping one eye on the Disco-Bolo readings, skimmed through the lyrics of the songs Jarvis selected, a careful ear listening to the songs as they scrolled through one by one.

Suddenly Loki sat up. "Jarvis, replay that one," he ordered.

Tony looked up from the HERB Finder, the panels replaced. "You like this one? Huh. Wasn't expecting you to like dance music. We really should go clubbing."

Loki ignored the mortal as the lyrics flashed up on his tablet and he scrolled through the words. It was perfect. He felt his chest contract as the song replayed, the lyrics reverberating around the workshop, swelling within his heart, and absently Loki began tapping his foot to the beat.

He had liked the jazz music Steve had played for him, but there was something more soulful in these lyrics, something that tugged at his core, as though the beat registered in the very place where his magic resided and soothed the hurts he still held close to his chest. Is this what music did to everyone on Earth, did all humans feel like this? Or was this a side effect of having seidr? No wonder humanity had thrived since Asgard last took an active interest, there was so much raw passion in just this simple recording. If all of humanity felt this when listening to music, then truly they couldn't lose against Thanos, against The Other, if- he grimaced, -when they came for him.

On the third repetition, Loki began humming the tune, and on the fifth, Loki surrendered all pretenses of dignity, closed his eyes, and sang.


	16. Step 16 - Collecting shiny things

"Loki, have you seen my cufflinks? Could swore I left them on the minibar."

Loki glanced up from his book. "Cufflinks?"

"Shiny metal with an arm extending that swivels back and forth. Goes in dress shirts. I wore them to the shareholder meeting a few days ago."

"Can't say I've seen your cufflinks, Stark."

"Hmm." Tony muttered as he wandered off.

* * *

"First my beer cooler and now my goddamn coffee mug."

"What does it look like, Clint? Maybe it just got misplaced when the dishes were last put up?" Rogers asked.

"No. Don't wash it. Silver, has an arrow on it."

"So let me get this straight." Tony interrupted, as he and Loki crossed the floor of the communal kitchen, Tony helped himself to a cookie Rogers had laid out. "You're missing a mug, that you always drink coffee out of, that you never wash? That's gross, Birdbrain."

"Shut up Stark."

* * *

"Anyone home?" Rogers called from the elevator door, as he knocked on the frame.

The unnecessary knock after the elevator dinged alerted Loki and Tony that Rogers had arrived at the penthouse. The good Captain knocked every time he exited the elevator. Never mind that he was the only one of the Avengers besides Banner that could access the penthouse without Tony keying them in directly. Never mind that no one else knocked once the elevator arrived. Ever.

"Hiya Cap!" Tony called over his coffee, his eyes not leaving the StarkTab set up against the salt shaker. "Whatcha doing?"

"Have either of you seen my metallic pencils set? I thought I left them on the roof when I was sketching the other day, but I couldn't find them and they're not in my art box, either."

Tony looked up. "They make metallic pencils? Cap, let me hook you up with a state of the art StarkTab, you can draw with metallic pencils, brushes, whatever your heart desires at the touch of a button. Screen. Whatever."

Rogers waved him off, "It's not the same Tony. Guess I'm going to the art store later anyway. You guys going back to the lab today?"

"Yup. Testing an enhanced Disco-Bolo. There might be dancing involved. Did you know Loki can sing?"

"Stark!" snapped Loki.

"Gorgeous voice." Tony nodded sagely.

Rogers grinned. "Maybe we'll do karaoke as a team building exercise soon."

"Then let's be thankful I'm _not_ an Avenger." Loki grumbled.

"Aw, Lo-Lo, don't be like that!" Tony stood, finishing his coffee on the way to dump his dirty dishes in the sink. "Don't worry Cap, I'll send you Jarvis's recording."

"STARK!"

* * *

Banner arrived late afternoon, the doors to the workshop sliding open for the Doctor as he meandered in. Loki stood beside Tony as the mortal manipulated the holo-readings from the Disco-Bolo, expanding and contracting the projections as he studied the oscillations in the frequency.

"Guys? Did I leave my worry stone down here?"

Loki glanced through the holograms. "What is a worry stone, Doctor Banner?"

"Green, moss-colored. Supposed to put your thumb in the indentation and rub it when worried. Mine's for mental energies, supposedly. Different gemstones mean different things." Banner paused to shift aside a few papers on one of the workshop tables before he wandered through the workshop, his eyes scanning the tabletops as he strolled.

"That is… surprisingly sentimental, Doctor Banner." Loki responded. "Does it work?"

"Sorta. It's kinda like meditating. Guess I'll go pick up another one, they sell them at the health food store down the street." Bruce sighed, making his way back towards the door, "Oh, and Loki? Call me Bruce. I've already seen video of you singing, Doctor Banner just sounds wrong now."

As the door slid shut behind Banner, Loki spun around to find Tony desperately biting his lip to keep a straight face.

"Stark!" Loki shouted.

Tony cackled, and Loki shoved him so hard he fell through the holo-readings onto the couch behind him. The infernal mortal curled up laughing, great heaving guffaws that left him breathless, and Loki's own face betrayed him with a small smirk curling

the edge of his lips.

* * *

"Don't even think about it."

Loki looked up in surprise, to find Agent Romanova repelling down from the roof of the tower to land on the penthouse balcony. As Romanova unhooked her harness and secured the ropes she'd descended from under one of the balcony chairs, Loki dog-eared his book. Romanova carefully perched on the edge of the seat she'd secured the ropes beneath, and pointed at the book Loki had abandoned.

"What are you reading?"

Loki flipped the spine over to reveal the title, and Romanova nodded. "That's a good book. Not the most uplifting, but a very good study of human nature. You'll grok it."

Loki let the faintest of smiles touch his lips. "What do you want, Agent Romanova? You don't pay social visits normally."

One of Romanova's perfectly manicured eyebrows lifted, and she smiled, this time with teeth. Loki squirmed in his seat.

"Stark's cufflinks. Roger's pencils. Banner's worry stone. Clint's silver coffee mug. Whatever it is of mine that you plan on pilfering next, don't even think about it."

"Agent Romanova, I don't know what you are referring to." He faked a scandalized expression, letting his anger show through. "Wait, are you implying that I have _stolen_ these items from your teammates? Simple things that they've quite obviously misplaced themselves?"

She grinned suddenly, then threw her head back and laughed. "And Stark thinks he's a genius. Does he not know what step sixteen is?" she finally said when she paused to inhale.

"Damn." Loki cursed. "Again with the list. Does anyone _not _know about the list?"

Romanova grinned. "Clint doesn't know about it." She stood, reconnecting the ropes to her harness and secured an ascending loop as well to the base of her harness.

With practiced ease she began ascending the rope, the cables making a soft shht-click noise as she climbed, and she turned to look down at Loki, who was shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun off the tower windows. "Just return everything by the end of the week and I won't tell anyone that our resident god of mischief is also a magpie. Except Tony's cufflinks, I think. Because you really like having those in your pocket, don't you?"

Loki felt his cheeks flame, and Romanova laughed again as she disappeared over the lip of the roof.

"Damn," he muttered again, but his heart felt full as he put a hand in his pocket to finger the cool metal cufflinks.


	17. Step 17 - Birthdays

"Surprise!" they shouted as the doors to the elevator opened.

Loki's eyes snapped up quickly to see the entirety of the Avengers, Earth's _mightiest _heroes, standing stupidly around the communal living room with multicolored pointy hats on their heads. Rogers' blue party hat looked ridiculous, as though it were too small for his jaw but the string had been stretched to compensate. The genuine smile on his face also concerned Loki, but there in the center of it all was Tony, wearing two red hats like cat ears with a grin on his face.

"What… is this?" Loki managed, as he took but a few steps into the room.

"Its your surprise birthday party!" crowed Tony as the mortal bounded a few steps towards Loki, and Loki noticed then the emerald green party hat in Tony's hands, and to the left, the dining table had been covered in gold and green tinsel, with a gaudy tinfoil sign that appeared to have been liberated from a child's party reading in the background 'Happy Birthday!' with multicolored balloon letters littering the surface.

"My birthday," Loki inhaled, willing his heart to stop racing. "You mean the day my birth father cast me out to die on the frozen wastelands?"

"Loki, no-"

"Or the day that Odin decided to take a Jotun baby as a political prisoner?"

"Uh, I mean, it's not-"

"How would you even _know_ it was my birthday? Did you calculate the date based on some old Norse mythology dating the end of the Asgardian-Jotun war?"

"No, Lokes, I just-"

"The day that _no one_ on Asgard celebrates, except for those who lost loved ones during the war? Did you know that I've _never_ had a public birthday celebration in Asgard, but Thor's birthday has been a holiday throughout the realm since I can remember?"

"Oh boy," Bruce muttered.

Loki spun on his heels and stormed into the waiting elevator car, punching the floor for the penthouse with a vicious fist. As the doors closed he heard Clint screeching with laughter as Rogers and Tony called his name. He didn't turn to see their expressions as the door closed, but with the quiet plink of the doors, Loki sagged against the elevator wall.

Of all things Tony could do, Loki thought, of all ways to humiliate him. Loki scrubbed at his face as the doors opened to the penthouse, and he shuffled inside. Loki looked around the room, his heart beating erratically, irrationally angry at himself for returning to the penthouse he shared with Tony, of all places, but where could he go? The mortal would find him anywhere in the tower, and he was still on probation with SHIELD. He could go sit on the roof until Tony had gone back to the workshop or to sleep, but even there Jarvis would know where Loki had gone.

The god paced in front of the windows, his hands clenched in tight fists. How dare he, how _dare_ he, how dare the insolent mortal throw a public celebration to _humiliate_ Loki over his less-than-illustrious birth! In front of all of the _Avengers_ too. Of course the Avengers all knew he was adopted, he'd learned that early on. Thor had told them supposedly during the whole Midgardian invasion, as though it justified the god's erratic behavior.

And if _that_ wasn't still a festering wound, Loki didn't know what was. To have the man he had called brother for over a thousand years, the man he'd grown up with, fought with, played with, and battled for, just write his behavior off as a fit of temper after discovering the truth of his Jotun origins? That hurt. That _hurt_. That Thor didn't even know him well enough after all this time, couldn't see that something was truly wrong with Loki to make him act this way, that he was not himself. That a mere mortal that he'd never met before could understand the god better than the man he'd called brother, it ached, ached in a way that made Loki want to destroy things, to rip apart Stark's couch with his bare hands, and smash in the recently replace entertainment center's television until the glass crunched satisfactorily under his boots.

But he didn't. He couldn't. It just, hurt so much.

"Jarvis, could you… could you please not let Stark up here for a little while." Loki sagged into the couch, his anger giving way to a painful ache behind his sternum, a feeling that Loki had come to associate with thinking of his not-brother and his not-family. "I would like to be alone for now."

"If I may, Mr. Lie-Smith, I believe you have misunderstood Sir's intentions." Jarvis said, the AI's voice almost hesitant, an observation that would have marveled Loki had he not been so distracted.

The elevator dinged, and Loki exhaled and covered his face with his hands. "So pleased to know you complied with my request, Jarvis," the god bit out.

"My apologies Mr. Lie-Smith, but I do believe you should hear what Sir has to say."

Loki felt the weight shift on the couch and a hesitant touch to his shoulder, and the god dropped his hands from his face to stare out the windows. He inhaled sharply, then turned his head ever so slightly to study the mortal beside him. Tony sat precariously on the edge of the sofa, with one foot tucked under his knee, his hand stroking careful light circles across Loki's back. Somewhere after Loki's abrupt departure, the genius had ditched the red hats.

"Your AI is under the impression that I've misunderstood what a birthday party is." Loki grumbled.

A small smile graced Tony's mouth, and the mortal shrugged. "I don't care if you misunderstood, I've obviously upset you and that was not my intention."

"What was your intention then, Stark?"

"Er, well, SHIELD has agreed to provide you with paperwork for Earth. Or rather they're going to get the right US officials to provide it. So you'll have a passport, driver's license, everything. Officially you're an asylum case, but I have the best lawyers in the world, so I'm not worried. Hell, you'll even be able to vote in elections here, won't that be fun for a prince?"

"Ex-prince," Loki chided.

"Whatever. Semantics. Think about the democracy!" Tony waived his free arm around erratically as though the act of sitting still for even this long was foreign to the man. "Steve will talk your ear off though, don't ask him about current election issues. Big mistake."

"Get to the point." Loki said.

Tony's face fell, and he looked down at his lap, "I figured, well, you didn't have an Earth birthdate, so I sort of, well, picked one for you since you needed one for the official documents here. And there's this old tradition that talks about personality traits based on when a person is born, more ancient Earth mythology crap, called a zodiac sign-"

"I'm familiar with the term." Loki interrupted.

"And Jarvis and I thought you'd be a Scorpio. So when Jarvis reminded me that step seventeen was birthdays, I thought…"

Loki sighed, "You thought you'd make a good memory for me with a surprise party. And I thought you were making a joke at my expense in front of all of your friends."

"First of all, Lo-Kitty, that was not a group of _all _of my friends. I'll have you know that Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey were also invited, but couldn't come since I only had this idea a few hours ago." The mortal nodded to himself, before he continued, "And second of all, I'm relatively certain Bruce and Steve, and sometimes even Nat, would be offended to hear you say they're only _my_ friends."

"That's not the point, you idiot." Loki grumbled, but he bit his lip to keep in the grin that threatened.

"I know. Apology accepted. No harm, no foul." Tony smirked.

"Who says I'm apologizing?" Loki asked.

"Yeah, yeah, god-complex. Can we go get cake now before Clint tries to eat it? I want to show you this awesome Earth tradition where we put a candle on a cake for each year of life." Tony tugged at Loki's elbow. "Do you think the cake is going to be big enough? How old are you? I only have a pack of 25 candles, could we do one per century you think? I had Jarvis check the fire extinguishing equipment anyway, just to be safe."

Loki chuckled, and at the sound, Tony turned and pulled the taller man into the briefest of hugs. Loki returned the gesture, that familiar pain behind his sternum changing into something else, something almost more raw than when he thought of his not-brother, something fearful and pure and accepted, an ache that almost hurt more.

"Tony," Loki said as he released the mortal, "I overreacted. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ruin-"

Tony shook his head once, covering the god's mouth with a finger. "No more of that, Lokes. Cake now. Heartfelt discussion about why you thought a birthday party was insulting later, preferably with scotch. Deal?"

Loki nodded once, and followed Tony onto the elevator.


	18. Step 18 - New Holiday Traditions

"For the last time, Stark, I'm _not_ putting on a costume and parading around at some event!" Loki growled, spinning his chair in the workshop away from the infuriating mortal.

"Awww, come on Lo-kitty! I already got you cat ears and a black velvet mask!" Tony teased. "It's an Earth tradition, and since it's your first Halloween around here, it counts as making a _new_ tradition too!"

"No!" Loki snapped.

"But it's for a gala! For charity! Stark Industries is one of the biggest donors, and Pepper already told me I have to go or else," Tony visibly shuddered, "and you know how scary Pep-Pep can be."

Loki turned carefully to look at Tony, where the mortal had perched on the back of the couch with his Iron Man helmet and repulsors tied into his chest-piece as he ran through new sequencing tests. It wasn't possible, but to Loki's eyes this version of the helmet seemed to be smirking.

"Besides, you'll be in costume, no one will know who you are." Tony argued.

"No, Stark. Get someone else to attend."

"Lokes," Tony whined, "I'll be bored if you don't go. And besides, I already got SHIELD's permission."

Loki looked up from his book. "Why in the Nines would SHIELD grant permission for me to attend a masquerade ball, of all things?"

"First of all, it's called Halloween, not some fancy-schmancy Asgardian 'masquerade ball'," Tony flipped up the visor, and turned to look at Loki, "And second, the charity benefits the children of the first responders who died in the Chitari attack. So, um," Tony coughed, "Yeah, Fury might have been a little vindictive in granting permission? You know what? Bad idea. Forget it. I'll just duck out early and we can watch scary Earthling movies after like every other mature adult on Halloween."

Loki leaned back, his eyes searching skyward. The gray workshop ceiling was uninspiring most days, but the gray geometric lines criss-crossed in a soothing pattern as Loki concentrated on his breathing. It wasn't his fault, it wasn't _his_ fault, he didn't _want_ to kill anyone, he'd done what he could, _hadn't he_? Enough to shut down the portal, eventually, without letting The Other catch on to his plans. But was it enough? Looking at those days, it was like searching for meaning in clouds. He remembered who he was back then, remembered it like a phantom pain, like a distant injury that still is carried in how he walked, how he talked. Like a limp, a bad knee that has healed but is still weak, still threatens to give way when stressed.

He hadn't cared who died, because he hadn't expected to live.

There's the difference, Loki thought, between him and Tony. Tony became Iron Man under pressure. Tony, the diamond in the rough that became forged and fired and sparkled after all the horrible things that were done to him, taken from him, betrayed and broken but not vindictive.

Loki remembered Germany. He remembered prowling down the stairs, his helmet materializing as he willed it forward with his still-recovering seidr, the power he felt as the humans scattered, like roaches after someone flips on the porch light, and he _had _relished it, like one relishes the last breath before slipping beneath the waves, or a sunset before leaping from the cliffs. Because what did their pain matter, in the overwhelming face of his own suffering?

_Damn_, Loki thought, and he looked up to see that Stark had removed the repulsors and moved on to modifications on his boots, something about the shielding in the ankles, the man had said.

"What will you be costumed as?" Loki asked. Tony looked up with such a hopeful expression that Loki's heart clenched.

"Uh, I thought I'd go as a pirate? I wanted to go as a dog but Pep-Pep said a cat and a dog at the same Stark Industries gala table is too obvious and would create all sorts of rumors that we don't want to deal with."

Loki smirked. "Stark, I think she's worried that _you_ are too obvious. But what _would_ my cover story be?"

Tony shrugged, "Nat suggested you go as her cousin. Visiting at Avengers tower."

Loki blinked. "Ms. Romanova is attending as well?"

"Well yeah, if you go. But don't worry, Nat's just going to be there to keep SHIELD happy. And, well, keep an eye on things if anyone were to recognize you. Not that I think anyone will, I'm telling you, Jarvis scrubbed the footage so well that even SHIELD can't find any of you from the invasion."

Loki exhaled, his hands twisting the pages of the book in nervous flickers. He couldn't identify the unfamiliar weight on his shoulders, the pressing force that felt something like remorse, like regret for what was done and couldn't be undone. Perhaps it was a Midgardian thing, all of these emotions that Loki had so carefully discarded in the thousand years he spent on Asgard, trailing after his war-minded not-brother in dangerous campaigns that tested both Thor's strength and Loki's magery, learning to use weaponry that he couldn't dare hope to master with his smaller frame, ignoring the taunts and jeers from Thor and all of Asgard over his use of magic, his fighting style in battles, his tricks. And there were many, many tricks, trickery that hurt and trickery that saved. Loki was under no delusions about his past; Tony may have wrapped up Loki's role in the Chitari invasion into a nice little package of coercion by torture beyond imagination, but Loki knew there were so many things he had done that couldn't be explained away so easily.

Like letting the Frost Giants in during Thor's coronation.

Had the ends justified the means? It had saved Asgard from rule by a foolish child, for a time. Thor was brash, arrogant, and not ready to take the reigns, Loki knew that then just as surely as he knew it now, but several of the guards to the vault had died, and they had families, surely. Yet he'd never regretted their deaths, a warrior's death with a ride to Valhalla on the wings of the Valkyries.

But children whose parents were killed in an ill-fated attack by aliens that Loki had led right to the center of the city? Perhaps casualties would have been lower had he selected a remote location, but Loki had worried how long it would take Earth's forces to dispel the threat then, if he'd had the portal opened away from everyone. There truly was no easy answer.

And on top of that, Loki grimaced, he hadn't really cared. If the attack failed, he was dead either way, be it The Other or Asgard who delivered the killing blow. This thing, this living, this is what he hadn't counted on, this is what he struggled with now to comprehend. And Tony, damn the stubborn idiot, wouldn't let him go. It was both wondrous and terrifying, because what happened when the mortal truly saw who Loki was, _what_ Loki was deep inside? The monstrosity that Asgard feared, that he'd done nothing but prove the terrible tales right time and time again without even knowing it for all those years, with his tricks and mischief and treachery, motivated by spite and anger, never pure, never simple. Yes, he'd led the Frost Giants into the vault during Thor's coronation, but Loki couldn't lie to himself, his motivations were not merely aimed at protecting Asgard from a reckless leader.

Tony settled into the stool beside him, and pulled the book from Loki's hands. The pages were twisted at the corners, with crinkled, miniscule tears that would never heal, not even with time.

"You okay there, Snowflake?" Tony asked. "You don't have to go, you know."

Loki scowled at Tony, "I'd be a coward not to."

"Nuh uh. None of that." Tony said as he flicked Loki's nose, and the god grimaced at the sharp sting. "I've told you before, if my willful ignorance is redeemable, your coercion by that asshole certainly is. And don't give me that 'I'm not a good person, Tony' speech again, or I'll sic Nat on you. Every one of us living in this tower has at least one or two regrets. No one's perfect. Well, _almost_ no one, but Steve's kind of a freak like that."

"Tony," Loki sighed, "you're impossible."

The mortal grinned, "I know. So, you'll go?"

"I suppose I will."


	19. Step 19 - Passing tests

Loki woke to the intruder alarm blaring loudly, before it silenced itself mid-wail.

Someone had bypassed Tony's security and gotten past Jarvis, past the floor-wide lockdown that Tony kept in place on the penthouse whenever Tony wasn't around, past the precautions to keep SHIELD out, past his security system.

"Jarvis, who is the intruder?" Loki grumbled as he sat up in his bed. Probably Barton had taken another wrong turn in one of the ducts and decided to harass Loki again or place another green party hat on Loki's bedroom door. He'd been finding reminders of the ill-fated surprise birthday party for almost a week, left in places that Barton thought Loki would stumble across them.

Loki slowly stood up. "Jarvis?"

The silence stretched uncomfortably in the dim room. Loki took a shallow breath. Jarvis _always_ answered. Always. Loki dressed quickly and pulled on his leather boots and jacket, his heart racing as he strained to listen for something, anything from the penthouse that would tell him what had happened to trip the alarm. That this wasn't real. It couldn't be The Other, couldn't possibly be him already. It was too soon, Earth was too far away.

As he fastened his jacket, he'd begun to think that he'd dreamt the alarm, that he hadn't even asked for Jarvis yet because that too was part of the dream, and Loki whispered again, "Jarvis, where is Tony?"

Jarvis didn't respond.

Loki sank to his knees, his shoulders brushing against the clothing of his walk-in closet, and wrung his hands together. It couldn't be The Other. It _couldn't_. But who would break into the penthouse of Stark's Tower, when Tony wasn't there? Wouldn't they target the workshop? Or Stark Industries' research labs on the lower floors?

Loki grimaced. Without his magic and trapped in this mortal body, the knives weren't particularly useful if indeed The Other had arrived to collect him. But he couldn't hide in his clothing wardrobe forever. He'd gone on campaigns with Thor, for Nine's sake, he wasn't a child. And what if Tony was in trouble too? He had to be, if Jarvis isn't answering. What about the other Avengers?

He reached behind his hanging clothes to the thin plastic box taped carefully to the wall, nimble fingers pulling at the tape as he opened the top of the box just enough to remove one of his two knives, the only two he'd managed to retrieve and hide from the pocket dimension before the All-Father had bound his magic. He didn't know how Heimdal hadn't noticed, and he didn't care. For all this time, since Loki moved from SHIELD's custody into the tower, Loki had carefully hidden the small knives, wrapped and covered in thin cloth, and hidden on his person in carefully concealed hiding places, and he'd never even looked at the knives without their covers until now. With hasty movements, Loki tore the fabric he'd wrapped around the knife, and sheathed it in a pocket he'd had sewn on Asgard inside his jacket for this very purpose. They were small, most useful as throwing knives, but in close combat they would serve his purpose.

A voice rang out from the living space, and Loki strained to listen. It sounded metallic, like Tony in the Iron Man suit, but it was wrong. Not Tony. Not familiar. Loki cracked open the door.

The voice called out again, this time close enough for Loki to make out the words. The accent was foreign, not like the quirky sounds Loki had come to associate with the country he now resided in, but something older, more guttural in its pronunciation.

"Here kitty, kitty, kitty!" The voice called again.

Loki narrowed his eyes, a slow grin spreading across his lips. Whoever it was, Loki now knew two things. First, it wasn't The Other, and second, the intruder had recognized Loki at the Halloween gala he'd attended with Tony the night before. It _had _to be another test by SHIELD, another of Fury's attempts to get Loki to mess up, to violate the terms of his probation so he could have Loki hauled back to SHIELD's headquarters. Loki hadn't returned, not since that day a few weeks ago, when Fury's demands triggered a panic attack.

Loki strolled out into the Penthouse, a casual smirk present across his lips.

"I promise you, Director," he called out as he strutted slowly down the hall, "I'm not interested in playing these games any longer. I was assured by Tony that SHIELD had granted its permission for me to attend. So if you could please be on your way and give up whatever ridiculous test you've concocted for the morning, I'd like to have my breakfast now."

Loki hesitated as he rounded the corner into the living room.

A figure clad in metal and a pale green tunic and cape stood by the balcony doors, the windows smashed open. This was… It was not The Other, but Loki wasn't so confident it was SHIELD, either.

The man—if it was indeed a man, and without his magic Loki couldn't tell—slowly turned. Its face looked to be forged into a permanent scowl, with dark eye-slits and a grid-like opening for its mouth. This wasn't the Iron Man armor, with its smooth, graceful lines, but rather appeared as though someone had reanimated a medieval suit of armor and enhanced it, made it sharper, uglier.

"Hello, Little Kitty," it said, "Doom wants to meet you."

"Oh?" Loki paced carefully into the room as he kept the penthouse's large couch between himself and the intruder, a watchful eye scanning to see if Tony had been caught up too but there was no sign of the mortal. "My apologies if I am unfamiliar with the Midgardian term, but I'm not entirely certain I want to encounter doom presently. I've had quite enough death and destruction recently, you see."

The caped figure cackled, and Loki couldn't help but think of that ridiculous movie Tony had made him watch last week, with the bald supervillain who kept petting a hairless cat.

"Come now, Little Kitty," it boomed, "You want what Doom wants; to see this world bow to us, bow to our superiority, bow to those that it has insulted and ignored. Together, we will make the whole world kneel."

As Loki paced towards the kitchen, the creature followed, slowly closing the distance until the only thing separating Loki was the width of the kitchen counter and minibar.

"And if I'm not interested any more in world domination?" Loki smirked, remembering a very different time when he'd stood on the other side of this very bar, and a reckless mortal had offered him a drink. He reached for the panel just under the counter lip, his fingers finding the hidden panic button Tony had told him about after Fury' latest threats.

"You have magic, Little Kitty, and you will help Doom learn its secrets, or Doom will not let the Avengers that you have allied yourself with survive this day."

The figure gestured to the windows and Loki let his eyes drift to the view outside. It was a sunny day across Manhattan, and he could fill the chill of November from the broken door. But off in the distance, a flash of light, yellow and orange, and then another bright blast lit up the skyline. Smoke poured from the first explosion, and it took Loki a moment to recognize the green shape that launched itself into the air as it reached for two silver-shaped objects. Loki realized with a start that the Hulk had just batted down two creatures shaped like the one before him. But for the two silver figures that were destroyed, five more appeared on the horizon, the yellow jetpacks flaring as they rocketed in, and even from this distance Loki could see the orange fireball nearby as something else exploded, something big. And where was Tony? Or Steve?

Loki turned back to the creature, his face dropping into a feral grin, and he forced a laugh. "You've been misinformed, I'm their _captive_, not their ally. And I'm no more magical than your average human, now. So you might as well let them live."

"Doom does not think so," the figure grinned, the unnatural metal mask twisting in harsh lines to replicate the expression, and made quick steps around the counter. "If you no longer have your magic, you cannot fight Doom's superior technology, and you will go to Latveria. Doom will learn _why_ you don't have magic now, Little Kitty, and you will still be useful to us."

Loki darted around the kitchen island, his back towards the balcony, and unsheathed his knife. Whatever this thing was, he was nobody's—_nobody's_—lab rat, not ever again, not anymore. But now this abomination stood between him and the elevators, and Jarvis was still not responding, and no one had come when he pressed the panic button, and he—

He—

Loki glanced over his shoulder.

The knife wrenched in his grip, and Loki slid forward a few feet before he released it. A metallic clank echoing across the penthouse as the blade slapped flat against the figure's metal hand.

"De-magnetized Asgardian steel is no match for Doom's inventions," the figure said, and Loki took a few quick steps back. "Now come quietly, Little Kitty, and Doom will make sure you are comfortable in Latveria."

Before Loki had time to register the sound, the figure roared forward with a flash of smoke and flame from its jet pack and seized Loki's shoulders. Up close, Loki could see the slot for a mouth was empty; where there should have been breath from the holes, he smelled nothing. So the abomination was a shell, a thing sent to capture Loki and controlled from elsewhere. That meant there could be more of them.

Loki dropped his center of gravity, and threw his forearms up and out to break the hold. The metal fingers dug in, but Loki's blow was stronger that the abomination, and he broke free from its grasp.

With a quick glance towards the skyline, the explosions and smoke marring any glimpse of the Avengers fighting in the distance, Loki spun on his heels and ran for the balcony doors. He cleared the broken glass to the sounds of an engine firing behind him, and Loki leapt over the threshold onto the balcony and, without hesitation, vaulted himself over the glass railing.

He fell.

Falling wasn't so bad, after all. He would die this time, this he knew. His body was practically mortal, with his magic restricted and strength restrained by Asgard's power. But Tony, the Avengers, Earth would be safe, no one would use his magic, no one would _use_ him, ever again.

It wasn't like letting go into the black depth of space, like when he let go from the bifrost. When he'd wanted to die (and oh, didn't that irony burn). But now, now it was peaceful, like the leap had saved him after all. Saved him, from something horrible, something unfathomable, so terrifying that nothing, nothing else mattered any more. Saved his friends, because maybe, just _maybe_, the thing controlling that abomination would surrender its ploy to distract the Avengers if the cause for the distraction was eliminated.

As he fell, he heard a whirling sound above him, metallic and high-pitched and closing fast, and with effort Loki pulled his legs and arms tightly against his chest, hastening his speed as the wind whipped painfully at his clothing. A sudden blast of heat threw him sideways, and he spun out of control towards brown glass building, his arms and legs flailing outward as bright patches of pain flared out on his hip, and Loki cringed, waiting for impact… and then, it was over.

Strong arms wrapped around his chest and he was jerked upward, his neck wrenched from the sudden force. He squeezed his eyes shut as his fists connected with the metal, and his voice sounded hoarse even to his own ears as the wind whipped his words away. A repulsor blast sounded close to his head, and Loki gasped in shock, and jerked his eyes open as the arms holding him changed directions abruptly yet again.

And Loki was momentarily blinded by the bright sunlight reflecting off the armor, before he realized that the metal of the arms holding him was painted hot-rod red.


	20. Step 20 - Getting paid

"Sir, Agent Romanov is requesting permission to visit the penthouse level."

"Huh." Tony muttered beside him, and Loki opened his eyes and carefully pushed himself upward into something resembling sitting, his arms bearing the brunt of his weight as he moved in slow motions so as not to strain the bandages swathed around the still-tender burns on his chest and hip.

"S'say why?" Tony asked, reaching for his coffee mug on the end table. The mortal waved a few fingers through the holo-monitor images displayed on his personal StarkTab and the holos dissipated.

"She indicated she has a matter to discuss related to recent events, Sir."

Tony rubbed at his eyes. "You up for a visitor, Lo?"

Loki sighed, one hand reaching to gingerly rub his neck. "You may as well grant her admission, Jarvis. She will just repel down from the roof if she is denied entry now."

The elevator dinged.

"Nat repelled down from- What?" Tony sputtered beside him.

"That was one time and there were extenuating circumstances involved." Romanova approached from the elevator, her heels clicking quietly on the marble floor as she angled for the red leather chair diagonally across from Loki.

"One time!" Tony exclaimed, his fingers flying across the tablet. "Jarvis, make a note, if anyone besides myself or Loki steps foot on the penthouse balcony, or even gets within ten feet of the penthouse balcony, from any direction, on the outside of the building, I want to know about it. Scratch that. I want sensors watching the balcony, infrared as well as optic, and let's add some laser guns. Maybe electro-shock, can we target it for intruders? Do pigeons fly up this high, Jarvis? What about helicopt-"

Loki reached over with one arm and placed his hand firmly over Tony's mouth. The mortal stopped mid ramble, and Loki quickly pulled his hand away before Tony could _lick_ his palm like last time. The mortal gave Loki a sheepish grin, before he picked up his coffee mug.

"I'll, uh… be right back. Loki, want anything? You'll be okay if I run down to the kitchen for a minute?"

"Stark, I'm _not_ a damsel in distress, you can leave me be for five minutes." Loki snapped, and immediately regretted it as Romanova's face broke into a fierce smirk. He heard Tony sigh behind him but didn't turn to see the mortal's expression.

_Damn_, Loki grimaced. He hadn't meant to upset the man, but Tony's constant presence since the Doombot had visited was starting to grate on Loki's nerves. And then every time he closed his eyes, he saw that moment when he'd thought the creature had caught him after all, that the metallic beast was holding him and going to whisk him away again. He _hated_ how weak he'd felt. How powerless. How alone. And the rage, the rage he'd felt at being denied _again_ the chance to die to avoid the pain and hell he'd expected. Only to finally open his eyes and find that familiar red and gold.

And now Tony was hovering, and Loki hadn't complained until now, which made it worse, Loki thought. It wasn't enough that he couldn't fight off an attack from some pathetic mortal's excuse for a lapdog, that his best plan of escape had been to jump from the penthouse balcony, but _now_ Tony thought he was going to jump off the balcony again if the mortal so much as looked at him the wrong way.

And Loki would be more annoyed that the only few minutes of peace he got alone in the penthouse were those times when he took care of his needs in the toilet, if it weren't also so damn confusingly comforting to see Tony's anxious face lingering in the background. If he hadn't had nightmares every time he closed his eyes, of The Other, of that stupid mortal's creation actually capturing him, of those explosions he'd seen in the distance growing larger and larger until the whole city was aflame.

Of finding Tony in the penthouse living room, without his suit and caught by surprise by one of those Doombots.

Loki leaned back into the couch, letting his neck rest into the cushion. Romanova was staring at him, her keen eyes watching the god's careful movements as he sprawled on the couch, his posture far from the normal angular lines and poise he usually maintained.

"If you have business to attend before Stark returns, you best get to it," Loki grumbled. "This is the longest he has voluntarily left my side since the attack."

Romanova huffed, but she looked entirely too amused for Loki to grow nervous over the expression. She looked comfortable, almost approachable if Loki didn't know what she was capable of with her pinkie finger alone, in jeans and a plain shirt with her hair pulled back, rather than the normal black of her SHIELD uniform.

"You aren't taking your pain medications," she observed.

Loki tried to shrug from within the couch cushions, but the gesture was hindered by a spasm within his neck muscles, and he flinched instead. "The draughts prescribed cause me to sleep at strange times," he murmured. "I don't like to feel unaware. Why, were you hoping I'd be more forthcoming with whatever errand SHIELD has sent you to collect, had I taken the requisite dose of your Midgardian narcotics?"

"I read Stark's report."

Loki's eyebrows shot up. "What report?"

"The one that detailed the evidence Banner mentioned a few weeks ago as proof that you intended the Chitauri invasion to fail. Stark also included his readings and visual feed of what lay waiting on the other side of the portal."

Loki leaned back into the couch, willing his hands not to twitch. "And?"

"So tell me, Trickster," Romanova smiled faintly, "When you tipped your hand in the helicarrier about the Hulk, was that an act within an act? Because there aren't many alive in this world who can play me."

Loki chuckled, and hid his face behind shaking hands. "Rest assured, Agent Romanova, you genuinely surprised me then. At the time, I was much too occupied with my own terror that The Other would see through my performance, see my mistake, and-" Loki's mouth clicked shut. "Let's just say it was not a pleasant memory. Is there something else you wanted to discuss, Agent? Despite not taking the prescribed draughts, it is still more exhausting to heal from injuries in this mortal form than I had realized."

"Natasha," she said.

Loki dropped his hands from his face, and carefully pushed himself to sit upright. "Excuse me?"

"Call me Natasha," she grinned again, and Loki felt uncomfortable, as though he'd befriended a lion and he were the lamb. "And I'm here on official SHIELD business from Agent Hill. SHIELD wants to hire you as a consultant, on magic, the Chitauri, the other realms, and so on. You'll have to pass the standard security checks and examinations, of course, but if you agree to become an official SHIELD consultant, Director Fury has agreed to waive Earth's rights to extradite you to Asgard when the Chitauri return."

"Why would the Director agree to this?" Loki couldn't keep the genuine confusion from his voice, and he winced at how desperate his voice sounded.

Romanova shrugged. "Because perhaps with Stark's report and data, the Director has finally agreed that these bastards aren't going to stop at merely retrieving their former pawn from Earth?"

Loki grimaced. "Fair but not particularly comforting, Agent- er, Natasha. If I agree, what are SHIELD's terms?"

"As your official legal guardian on Earth, any contract will have to be approved by Stark and his legal team, so I wouldn't worry too much about that," she shrugged. "For now, nothing will change except you'll need to come in and complete some biometrics testing. SHIELD has developed a new protocol, and they'd very much like to see how the god of lies performs on their tests."

"But you've already made your decision." Loki stated.

"I have," she confirmed. "And I'll be glad to have you on our side. Even more relieved when Asgard sees fit to return your strength and abilities, all things considered. But I don't think you're lying, not about this."

"Alright," he whispered. His chest felt tight in places, and he didn't think it had much to do with his injuries. Earth was the strangest place; humans, Loki couldn't understand how such a short-lived society could be so forgiving. But this woman, she too had been on the other side, had been the one seeking redemption. So why did it still seem so strange, so foreign, to Loki?

The elevator dinged and Tony emerged, balancing a tray with plates and coffee mugs stacked high.

"Lo-Lo, Steve made us lunch!" the mortal exclaimed as he sat the tray down on the coffee table. "Oh, and Brucie is coming by after lunch to change your bandages and recoat the salve, so if I were you I'd fish out that pill you stuffed in your pocket this morning when you thought I wasn't looking and eat up. Trust me, I have lots of experiences with burns and injuries here on Earth. Take the blue pill, Neo, there are memories you don't want to have."

Loki scowled as Natasha barked a laugh and stood to leave, nicking half of a tuna fish sandwich from one of the platters as she departed.


	21. Step 21 - Tea before bed

He remembered screaming.

He remembered screaming, and pain, and the smell of burnt skin, overwhelming heat as though his skin had boiled and the bones of his body were iron bars that weighed him down so he couldn't escape, bones that ached and carried within a fire far beneath their surface. As though a thousand snakes from Muspelheim had sunk their fangs into his body, and he could do nothing to dislodge the foul beasts as their fire flowed through his blood, rupturing to the surface in small rivers of red and blue, no matter how much he shook in his chains, no matter how much he screamed and begged and pleaded.

And he was not a creature used to begging, but of all his foggy memories of his time with The Other, the ones that never fade, that he remembers most clearly, are the times when he begged.

He remembers begging for death, mostly. But there were other things. Water. His mother. Anything but pain. Anything. He'd do anything. _Anything_.

He remembered the day that Thanos had answered instead of his lap dog.

_"You'll do anything, Little God?," _He had said.

The Mad Titan was even more frightening in person, and Loki remembered the fire-orange eyes most of all. He'd seen the Nine Realms, travelled the secret roads, but nothing… nothing could prepare him to meet the Mad Titan. And Loki played the role, played the betrayed king, and something deep inside made Loki wonder if he had actually been only portraying the part, if the pain and suffering hadn't twisted something so deep, so viscously part of himself as much as the blue skin that he couldn't shake free from.

And then that metallic creature had come and shattered his illusions of peace, of the feeling that he was safe and nothing could touch him in the ivory tower created by Tony, and the mortal was home this time. And-

"Ow! Shit! Fuck, Ow! Jarvis, lights!"

Loki grimaced as the room brightened, and he willed his eyes to open. His sleep-fogged brain protested the movement, and Loki flinched, waiting for his brain to catch up with his body. It would be worse for him, if he was awake and The Other asked something of him while he pretended to sleep. He coughed once, and a hand automatically clutching at the faded burns on his ribs, and Loki frowned at the unfamiliar sensation. The Other always left his skin unblemished after every episode; beneath his fingers, the skin felt smooth and taunt.

Loki sat up carefully, his eyes adjusting to the light as he blinked once, then twice, and slowly the view registered. He swiped at his cheeks, rubbing away the cold wetness as he exhaled, his throat scratchy as though he'd been screaming for hours. He wasn't in the hidden space between the roots of Yggdrasil, wasn't in the grip of The Other nor at the mercy of the Mad Titan's whims… and Tony sat on the edge of Loki's bed, clad in sleep pants and a worn-out t-shirt, and clutching his hand to his chest. Loki's heart raced as he realized with a start that he was_ blue_, and not partially blue—not just to his shoulders—but everything. Everywhere, he was _blue_.

"Tony," Loki swallowed hard, bile rising in his throat. "Are you hurt?"

The mortal looked up and grinned. His fingers and palm were bright red, but the skin had not whitened or blistered. "Give it a second, minor frostbite? It's fine. Will be fine. Actually, gonna go run it under some warm water."

"Stark," Loki choked out, keeping pace with Tony as the genius hurried into the en suite bath, "why in the Nine Realms would you touch me when I was blue? You _know_ I can't control it right now, not with my seidr locked away!"

Loki watched with sick fascination in the bathroom mirror as the blue receded down his arms and into his fingertips, his skin fading to pale white, as Tony turned on the faucet.

"Lo-Lo, don't worry about it." Tony called over the water. "S'no big deal. I fucked up, okay? It's just… haven't you noticed, it's been a long time since you went blue, from a nightmare? Should have checked first before I grabbed your shoulder."

"Should I call Banner?" Loki murmured. The mortal's fingers were pink under the warm water, and he watched as Tony tried to hide his grimace.

"No Lokes, really. It's fine. It's just frostnip, it's not a big deal."

"Tony, are you mad? My skin _burned _you. How is it, as you say, 'not a big deal'?"

"Your nightmares are getting worse, Lokes. It's not even been an hour since the last one. Is that why you're sleeping in here now, because of the whole blue thing? You know that sometimes the blue doesn't burn, right?"

"W-what?" Loki looked over at Tony, his eyes widening as the mortal shrugged casually as though discussing the monster living inside of Loki was simple as discussing the weather, a little smirk playing at Tony's lips. "How would you even know- you _tested _it?" Loki shouted. "After I've told you that Jotun skin quite literally _burns _the Aesir, you _used yourself as a test subject_? While I was lost in the midst of my night terrors?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Don't get your panties in a bunch, Snowflake. Of course I did. Science, remember? Hello, my best friend turns blue when he's upset, you think I'm not going to investigate? It's goddamn sexy too. Did you know you have these raised lines everywh-"

"I'm tired now, Stark," Loki turned his back on Tony. "Leave."

"No can do, Lo-Lo. That's the second wake-up call in three hours. We're having cocoa. Or you can have that vile tea you and Bruce seem to like." Tony put a careful arm around the god's waist, expertly avoiding the patches of sensitive skin remaining from his burns, and tugged the god towards the door.

"Contrary to whatever you believe, I'm not some quivering mess of degenerative god who is going to jump from the roof of the tower any time soon." Loki grimaced, but let the mortal drag him down to the penthouse living quarters. The warm arm around his body felt inexplicably comforting, as though his residual chill from the unexpected return to his native form had left him hollow inside. "Well, not _again_."

"Yes dear. With honey or plain?"

"Plain." He mumbled. "It's fruit tea, it doesn't require additional sweetening."

"Uh huh. Nasty." Tony said as he shoved Loki gently towards the couch, and Loki stretched out his long limbs across the sofa.

The truth was, Loki knew that he had gotten lucky. To escape an attack from what he'd later learned was called a DoomBot (and supposedly, one of the more intelligent kind without superhuman strength that Victor von Doom used as a double for diplomacy matters), fall almost forty stories, and play trapeze artist with Iron Man mid-air, Loki had been lucky to escape with only minor burns and some bumps and bruises.

Something bumped his knee, and Loki opened his eyes to see Tony holding out his favorite mug, steam rippling across the surface. Loki cradled the mug to his chest as Tony stretched out beside Loki, their shoulders and sides touching. Loki could smell the mortal's ridiculously rich hot cocoa, the rich aroma unpredictable and potent. Loki sighed, and took a sip of his tea. The steaming liquid burned his tongue, and the bittersweet flavor was mellowed out with something sweeter on the tip of his tastebuds. He carefully took another sip, letting the sharp flavor and pain that flared from the hot liquid center him.

"Spill it, Lo-Lo. What's your nightmare 'bout?" Tony's words were slurred with exhaustion, and the mortal leaned heavily into Loki's shoulder.

Loki studied the surface of his tea; the brown water swirled with accents and carried a slight sheen, from the acidity of the fruit. It was a ridiculous fear. Preposterous even more so because Loki didn't care for the implications. And yet, his subconscious had focused in, embraced his affections- but the mortal flirted with everything and he knew that, he _knew_ that. Because for all the useless, wasteful fear that Loki had felt when he'd thought the creature would capture him while he fell, his unconscious mind apparently only recalled that split second of fear he'd felt when he entered the penthouse living room and expected to see Tony in danger.

"My nightmare," Loki hummed, "I see the Doombot catching you unawares in the penthouse living room, without your suit."

"And…?" Tony prodded as he rested his cheek on Loki's shoulder, and looked up at the god through heavy eyelids.

"What makes you think there's more, Stark?"

Tony chuckled. "Genius. And…?"

Loki sighed, closing his eyes. "The Doombot defenestrates you. And I'm powerless to do anything."

Tony chuckled again, and Loki felt the humiliation burn deep in his stomach, and his gut twisted painfully. "It's not amusing, Stark!" he barked, his fingers nervously twitching around the tea mug.

"It's sorta funny. Ironic? Can it be ironic funny?"

"Idiot." Loki grumbled.

"_Genius_ idiot." Stark corrected, as he placed his empty cocoa mug on the coffee table. "Come on Lokes, let's go to sleep. No arguments, two nightmares makes you the official little spoon."

"I have no idea what you are saying. What does a Midgardian eating utensil have to do with nightmares?" Loki huffed, trailing behind the mortal into Tony's bedroom.

"Ask Brucie, he'll get the reference." Tony smirked, patting the pillow next to his.

Loki rolled his eyes as Tony gently pulled on the god's elbow until Loki's forehead rested just above Tony's collarbone, his arm thrown casually across Tony's chest, like he'd first slept that night in Stark's quarters on the helicarrier. As he drifted to sleep, he thought he imagined the chaste kiss to his temple.

_Figures_,Loki thought, even awake his subconscious is playing tricks on him.


	22. Step 22 - Watching your breath

The newest HERB Finder had been miniaturized, smaller than a microwave and no longer, to Steve's relief, shaped like a stereotypical human interpretation of what a science fiction portal would resemble. Even more importantly, it hadn't exploded on the first test.

It had also, inconveniently, been redesigned to include straps so that Loki could carry it around on his back.

Loki clenched his teeth as Tony tightened and then redid the waist strap, the additional weight pulling on Loki's shoulders. The weight of the HERB Finder, strictly speaking, was higher than what most mortal frames could carry, but even in his reduced form Loki was still stronger than Tony, strong enough to carry the density of the HERB Finder and its customized battery pack.

"Tell me again," Loki growled as Tony fiddled with the pack, the warmth of the battery seeping through against Loki's back, "why you thought the HERB Finder needed to be worn?"

"Can't stop what we don't know is coming, can we?" Tony mumbled as he fiddled with the output readings on his StarkTab. "Jarvis, are you onboard?"

The AI's smooth voice echoed from a hastily assembled speaker Tony had just welded to the pack. "I am indeed a passenger on board, Sir."

"Great. Can you link back with the home servers and run diagnostics on the monitoring? What sort of lag time are we talking, 'bout thirty seconds? Less?"

"I believe in ideal conditions without interference and proper satellite coverage, we should expect approximately twenty three seconds."

"Pretty slow. Jarvis, make a note. Let's add a small hyper-powered radio transmitter keyed up to an FM frequency that's not used as much in the city, set up a trigger notice. Find one for testing before production, we'll need to wear it around the city a bit to double check the range."

"And so inconspicuous, if I might add, Sir, for Iron Man to suddenly begin broadcasting on the radio. Also illegal, if one were to concern themselves with what the FCC believes."

"Yeah well, if this thing activates, means we got bigger problems than fines for jamming the radio waves."

Loki shifted his weight to the other foot. "Are you quite finished, Stark?"

"Patience is a virtue, Lo." Tony said, "But yeah, we're done for now."

The mortal unhooked the straps and slowly pulled the frame from Loki's back, taking care to heft the weight of the straps against his forearms. Loki rolled his shoulders once, before he turned to help Tony carry the device to his workbench. With a few taps, the quiet hum disengaged and the miniaturized HERB Finder fell silent.

Tony dropped the modified StarkTab beside the pack and sat down heavily in his chair. Loki sat beside him, in the chair Tony had ordered for the god when it became clear several months ago that the taller man would become a fixture in the workshop. The AI rattled of a series of statistics regarding the next configuration of the mini-HERB and as Jarvis's list of modifications trailed off, the silence stretched out, languid and thick.

Finally, Loki asked: "When are you planning on testing the, ah, HERB Jam?"

Tony shrugged, and Loki watched as the mortal twitched his eyes open to study Loki for a moment, then let his eyes fall closed again. "Waiting on Foster. Need her help reproducing a signal to test with. Hey! Wanna go to London with me in a few weeks?"

Loki glowered. "I'm fairly certain that if SHIELD won't let me venture out of the city, they'd be even less enthralled by a journey to another Midgardian country."

"Another country on _Earth_, Snowflake. And I have it on good authority that the only person who's supposed to be reporting back to SHIELD if you leave the tower is Nat. That reminds me." The mortal sat up, rubbing at his eyes. "Jarvis, is Nat awake?"

"Agent Romanov is in her rooms, Sir. And as you may recall, I am unable to view any biometric or video recordings from her rooms on the pain of sudden and violent electrical failure, so I am unable to determine if she is awake at this early hour. "

"And what about Cap?"

"A little less than half an hour until his alarm, Sir. May I inquire as to what your current scheme for angering SHIELD includes, Sir?"

Tony grinned, his eyes crinkling at the edges with mischief, and Loki exhaled sharply. That look on the genius's face, nothing good came from that look.

"Jarvis, activate Protocol Sixteen Candles, authorization AES5115 Sigma 3.14," the mortal said.

"Is that wise, Sir?"

"Shut up _Mom_, just gimme the map," said Tony, as he stood and stretched, the bones in his neck and back popping. "What's our best way out?"

As Tony stretched his arms upward, the edge of his shirt slipped up over the rim of the mortal's jeans, revealing a patch of tan and taunt skin mere inches from Loki's face. Loki's cheeks felt warm as he contemplated leaning forward into Tony's space, just resting his forehead on the mortal's stomach and licking at the exposed skin, imagining unbuttoning the dirty, grease-covered jeans with long, pale teasing fingers— he huffed a breath, and closed his eyes.

In one tiny moment, the god was both frustrated and humiliated; frustrated because Tony was just a friend, and from all accounts the genius flirted with anything that moved, and Loki wouldn't—couldn't—make his attraction known, wouldn't do anything to jeopardize this delicate arrangement. He was too grateful, too surprised by the continued goodwill from Tony and his fellow Avengers, of humanity more generally, the understanding and just knowing way that some of Tony's friends looked at him now, when he was lost in a memory, when he hovered on the edges of the room during movie nights before someone noticed and pulled him in to sit down. Never like Thor and his friends, never begrudgingly invited because of Tony but treated as an equal, as someone invited in not from obligation. Even Barton had made an effort, ever since Tony had filed that report with SHIELD that Romanova had mentioned.

And humiliated because when Loki had the chance, when he first had arrived at the tower and Tony had to bodily drag him into the shower in the Iron Man suit, and later, when Loki couldn't have been bothered to care for his appearance had Tony not pushed him along, he'd been too lost in his own world to notice Tony, to really appreciate the firm lines and strength and muscle on the genius's smaller frame. And he'd kissed the mortal as a joke, as part of that stupid list Tony had given him, thought himself a clever tease, only to now find himself wondering if his subconscious had known more even back then than Loki could admit now.

Which didn't matter, of course, because Tony wasn't interested.

And even if he _were_ interested, it was a despondently terrible idea. For one, Tony was mortal, and at most could expect to live another forty or fifty years, less if his heart had been impacted by his arc reactor. Loki had carried grudges for longer than that. And another, Tony had no idea what the _real_ Loki was like, what monstrosity hid behind an Aesir form, what lurked beneath the pale skin. Sure the mortal had apparently found his Jotun skin fascinating enough to experiment in the name of science when Loki wasn't awake—and Loki was still furious about that, but all the more furious because it scared him, that Tony could have been severely injured and Loki wouldn't have even known until it was too late, but the skin only hid the real dangers beneath the surface, didn't it? Jotuns were monsters, Loki had known this his entire life, had heard the stories of their atrocities, their vicious nature, and it was only Tony's ignorance on Midgard that kept the god in good graces with the mortal and his fellow Avengers. If they knew, if they knew—

A gentle hand on his shoulder shook him from his thoughts, and Loki opened his eyes to see Tony grinning in front of him and holding out one of his old sweatshirts to Loki, a dark gray hoodie with the letters MIT across the front and frayed at the edges. As though Tony had lived in the hoodie for several years, and then continued to live in it every year thereafter.

"We're going for donuts." Tony proclaimed.

Loki pulled the sweatshirt over his head as Tony did the same with a dark red one. The hoodie smelled faintly of the mortal, like cinnamon and stale coffee beans as though it had been propped up next to a coffee roaster then seasoned, and Loki inhaled the scent, memorizing the aroma and letting the comfortable feeling wash away his thoughts.

The mortal handed him a baseball cap and grabbed his elbow, pulling Loki towards the workshop's private elevator. "We have twenty minutes until Rogers' alarm, and Nat has an appointment at eight, so we have a few hours until anyone would notice. Jarv's blocking the feed here, and all the way to the donut shop."

"We're going outside?" Loki hesitated.

"Should be just chilly enough to see our breath, Snowflake. And it _is_ morning, even if we haven't slept yet."

Loki sniggered. "How you still manage to harp on that infernal list is beyond me, Stark."

Tony merely smiled in response and Loki's breath caught at the gentle lines of Tony's smile, the way the mortal's amber eyes brightened when he smiled without sarcasm, without snark, without any of the humor Loki had begun to understand that the mortal wore around his shoulders like a personal shield.

As Tony's elevator opened to his private garage, Tony caught Loki's hand within his and intertwined their fingers. Loki let the smaller man pull him through the side door accessible only by Tony's fingerprint and code, and out onto the streets of New York City.

The city was busy still even at this early hour, with yellow cabs and black town cars whizzing past the tower, paying no mind to the two men dressed in nondescript hoodies and baseball caps on a cold November morning. Tony turned to the left, and kept a quick but comfortable pace towards his favorite donut shop. Loki had never been, but Tony made sure there were always donuts delivered to the tower on Sunday mornings, or any morning after Loki had a bad night.

Two blocks from the tower, Loki noticed that Tony's fingers were still intertwined with his, the warmth of that hand contrasting sharply with the tingly cold of his other, and as the pair had warmed during their brisk paced walk, Loki's breath created white puffs of smoke with each exhale that danced and spun around his face, delicate and fragile.


	23. Step 23 - Bonfires

The fire had died down as the evening wore on, but the flames were still high enough to warm Loki's toes and knees even from this distance. Someone, he didn't recall who, had thrown a fleece blanket around his shoulders hours ago, soon after he'd settled into one of the reclining lawn chairs that they'd brought along.

Not that he could feel the cold; between his Jotun tendencies and the amount of alcohol that had gone around the fire, Loki was almost too warm.

Tony, the ridiculous idiot, had settled into a chair on Loki's right but had propped his legs across Loki's knees and turned his chair sideways to get closer to the flames. It _was_ cold, after all, late November on Midgard and nearing winter, if what Loki read about upstate New York's climate was correct. And everything smelled faintly of firewood and smoke and ash, and for all Loki could remember, he'd not been this comfortable in a long time.

It had been Steve's idea, to go camping in the Catskills for an American holiday called Thanksgiving, though Natasha has suggested the bonfire and after-dinner gathering, with a pointed look at Loki when she suggested it.

And Steve, the guy that everyone thought was the most earnest of the Avengers, had blatantly manipulated the merry band into agreeing to camp outside in tents in the cold autumn weather. He had woven a careful picture of wanting their first Thanksgiving as a team to be different and to do something that distinguished it from their past as he sought out each Avenger to ask after their holiday plans, and, everyone had agreed to the good Captain's wishes, despite Tony's protestations that he didn't sleep anywhere without at least four stars (whatever that meant, there were literally thousands of stars in the sky on Midgard, especially out here).

"Who's got next?" Tony slurred beside him, the mortal raising a beer to his lips. The group had fallen into a comfortable silence after one of the more outlandish stories of the evening, something Barton had shared about his time in the circus. Even Loki had laughed, loudly enough to startle Barton and Natasha, who'd never seen him smile, he supposed. "Brucie? Whatcha got?"

Bruce shook his head, "I don't have any good stories. The other guy doesn't really share, and I doubt you want to hear about deworming orphans in Somalia."

Rogers glanced up, "Is that a movie reference? I've seen that one."

And Tony cackled, "Please tell me you didn't actually watch Legally Blond, Capsicle?"

"Shut up Stark, it's a good movie." Barton snorted and from across the campfire, Natasha threw a pebble in Stark's direction, but Loki reached out and caught it before it could strike Tony in the forehead.

Tony laughed again, his shoulders shaking with mirth, and pulled out his phone. "Jarvis, buddy," he directed, "Remind me, need to make a list of culturally appropriate movies for Cap to catch up on."

"Tony!" Steve barked, "No tech, remember? Put your phone away!"

"Now, now," Loki purred, "I'm fairly certain that's equivalent to asking Stark not to breathe."

"Snowflake's right," Tony snickered, "S'got me outside, sleeping on the ground, in winter for fuck's sake. Can't win 'em all, Cap."

Steve rolled his eyes.

"I think I'm going to sleep," Bruce stood, pulling the blankets tighter around his shoulders. "This was fun. I'd say let's do it again soon, but I can't really feel my fingers. Maybe when it's warmer."

"Night nighty Brucie," Tony giggled again, and Steve waved to the man as he wandered off. Steve had helped Tony to pitch their tent closest to the main cooking fire, with both Bruce's and Steve's own tents further away where a second, smaller fire had been set up for warmth and to ward off the night.

Natasha stood, and a moment later Clint stood as well. Both nodded to Rogers and waved at Tony and Loki before they disappeared into the darkness. For reasons Loki didn't want to ask after, the two had declined to use a tent or sleep near the campfires, but set up a sleeping tarp and hammock system a few yards away from the main campsite. In the distance he could see their flashlights switch on as the pair ambled away.

"Lokes, s'your turn." Tony giggled. "Tell me a story."

Loki glanced at Steve, and let his lips upturn in a smile at the Captain's exasperated look. Tony was drunk. Correction, Tony was beyond drunk, he'd achieved a new level of intoxication on life, liquor, and friendship that Loki had not seen before, and that was before Natasha had broken out the vodka shots. She'd tried, valiantly, to get Rogers tipsy during dinner, but the most Steve had felt was a deep sensation of warmth and a slight blurring of the edges. Tony, however, had claimed that seven vodka shots was nothing and he'd obviously fallen out of practice through no fault of his own, goddamn invading aliens and Mandarins, and Bruce had laughed and, confusingly enough, nudged Loki's arm.

"This was unexpectedly pleasant," Loki looked to Rogers, "I have to admit, I was hesitant about joining you all on this expedition. Usually, sitting around after a quest with my bro— with Thor and his friends, it is not so cordial an experience."

Steve quirked an eyebrow, "How so?"

Loki grimaced, one of his hands finding Tony's leg and he wrapped his fingers around the mortal's ankle, thumbing the edge of Tony's sock. "On Asgard, there is a great deal more fighting and showmanship involved when Thor, Lady Sif, and the warriors three venture out on a quest. And the stories told after, the stories are always about the glories of the battle or hunt, or the enemy's brute strength that a true warrior overcame."

"So? What's the difference? We told stories about our fights tonight." Steve observed. "I mean, I guess defending myself with a trashcan lid isn't only about brute strength?"

"No," Tony growled, suddenly not sounding as intoxicated as Loki remembered, "He means that on Asgard, it's only stories of victory that are told. We told stories of our failures, Cap. Of how we tried something, and it didn't go to plan. We laugh at our failures, at our weaknesses. The idea of a ninety-pound Brooklyn kid pickin' a fight with a trash can lid? Funny. Clint's tale about falling from the big top while training in the circus? Funny. You laugh at an Aesir's tale about battle, and you're gonna have another fight on your hands. Am I right, Lokes?"

Loki could feel Tony's gaze, the heat of his stare warming Loki's neck and he felt the flush rise in his cheeks as he resolutely stared at the fire. He nodded ever so slightly.

Steve's face fell, his smile fading as his brow furrowed. "Loki, I've seen Thor fight, and he's all power and force in his attacks. If Asgard prizes a warrior's skill so greatly, what do they think of magic like yours?"

Loki briefly closed his eyes. "What do you think, Captain?"

"I think I've seen you fight even when your magic was being corrupted, limited by that scepter, and it'd be pretty stupid of Asgard to disregard the benefits of a unique skillset just because it's not their norm." Steve said.

Loki barked a laugh. "The day Asgard respects a warrior with seidr is the day the universe as we know it will end."

"Well, more's the pity." Steve mumbled, and then he stood and clapped Loki on the shoulder as he strolled away. "Goodnight Loki, don't let Tony drink anymore or you won't be able to get him into the tent."

"S'just beer, practically water," Tony protested. "Just 'cause he can't get drunk, doesn't mean he's gotta ruin it for the rest of us."

Loki smirked, but took the bottle from Tony's hands anyway and hauled the mortal to his feet. Tony squeaked in protest, but didn't object as Loki guided him towards their tent. After losing their shoes and jeans and zipping closed the tent flap, Loki huddled down into his sleeping bag and closed his eyes.

Only to open them moments later as cold air hit his legs and he flinched, sitting up quickly and almost bumping foreheads with Tony as he reached for his flashlight.

"What in the Nines are you _doing_, Tony?" he growled, flicking on the flashlight. He looked down to see Tony had unzipped his sleeping bag entirely and was now refastening his to connect with Loki's.

"S'cold. Two's warmer." Tony's teeth chattered as he finished fastening the second zipper, then quickly shimmied into his sleeping bag that was now attached to Loki's. Loki had but a moment of renewed warmth before icy feet tangled with his calves, and he gasped in surprise.

Tony giggled, and Loki propped his head up to look at the mortal. Tony pressed his back into Loki's chest and pulled his pillow up to muffle the sounds of his laughter, his eyes scrunched closed and unfocused but whether it was from alcohol or his amusement, Loki didn't know. As he watched, Tony's face emerged and the mortal swiped at tears, giggling all the while.

"You're rather intoxicated, you realize?" Loki grinned.

"Yup" Tony crowed.

"And you're alone with the God of Mischief, in a tent, somewhere in Midgard."

"Sounds kinky," Tony giggled again. "S'there gonna be candles next?"

Loki rolled his eyes, and turned off the flashlight. "Go to sleep, you idiot."

"_Genius_ idiot," Tony giggled again.

"Hush," Loki whispered, pulling Tony in close, draping an arm protectively over the mortal's chest.

This close, Tony smelled of smoke and ash and stale alcohol, but there was more to the scent. Scotch twisted with metal and blended with the smoke, and the faintest scent of coconut, as Loki inhaled the scents that comprised the man. Tony giggled again, and pushed himself back into Loki, stretching his legs out lengthwise.

The mortal's feet were _still_ freezing.

Loki inhaled again, burying his nose in Tony's hair. Beyond the smoke, the scent of coconut was stronger against his skin, and Loki's chest felt heavy, as though he'd held his breath for too long underwater and now had to kick his legs hard for the surface. Tony wiggled his hips, and Loki froze, closing his eyes as he felt familiar stirrings rise to the occasion, and he reflexively tightened his grip on the smaller man.

"Lokes," whined Tony.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" Loki whispered as he moved away.

"No, no," Tony hiccupped, catching onto Loki's wrist. "Not that. Just. Not 'posed to."

Loki paused. "Not _supposed _to. Because I'm a monster."

"No. Don't. Don't be ridiculous. Not a monster, told you the blue thing's sex. I mean sexy." Tony muttered.

"Oh, so _now_ you're going to hold New York against me? Is that why you're not _supposed _to?"

"Lo-Lo, that's not it, s'not New York. Fuck, why is this so hard." Tony stuttered and rubbed his eyes.

"Stark," Loki spat, "It's just a physical reaction, it doesn't mean I'm _interested_. It'd be foolish anyway. Just… just let's go to sleep," Loki pulled his wrist forcefully from Tony's grasp.

"Oh for fuck's sake," the mortal grumbled, as he rolled towards Loki, the blue of the arc reactor lighting up the god's face. Loki tried to shift away, but then Tony jutted his hips forward, and- Oh Nines! Tony smirked at Loki's stunned expression and swayed forward into Loki again, the warmth of Tony's interest taunt against Loki's own. "S'at answer your question, Lokes? Can I kiss you already?"

Loki chuckled in astonishment, a crumpled sound that choked off into a helpless whimper as Tony captured the god's lips with his own. Their tongues met, and Loki groaned. The mortal tasted of scotch and iron and pineapple, and as the taste of Tony mingled with touch and smell and sound, Loki relaxed into the kiss, letting his hands and tongue tell his story as he surrendered himself to the will of the universe, tucked securely in the embrace of Midgard's most foolish mortal.


	24. Step 24 - Traveling to new places

"Holy shit, you guys _finally _sucked face last night!" Barton whooped, "Hill owes me ten bucks!"

Tony looked up from the French press he was fiddling with, eyes red and bleary as he studied Barton. "Birdbrain, how would you even_ know_ that? And fuck you, for not letting me in on the betting pool, that's what. You've been making crude jokes about Loki putting out for months."

"Excuse me, Stark? I do not, as you've so vulgarly phrased it, '_put out_.' I am _not _a woman." Loki growled as he stole the first cup of coffee poured from the press.

"Hey! Sucking face doesn't mean you get to steal my coffee!" Tony snapped, but his eyes brightened as Bruce handed him another coffee mug, and the mortal poured the rest of the coffee into his mug before inhaling several steaming mouthfuls. After his forth sip, Tony sank into the lawn chair next to Loki's, and stretched out his feet towards the fire. Even though the group planned to depart that the morning, someone, most likely Bruce, had built up a small fire for the group to huddle around.

"Well I guess now we know who tops," Clint mocked.

"Shut it Barton!" Tony huffed, "And besides, hasn't anyone told you? That's no longer a thing," The mortal waived his hand dismissively. "It's a narrow-minded construct that is designed to classify sexual practices within the same framework as those used by the cissexual community."

"What the-? Since when the fuck did you become a mouthpiece for GLAAD? I mean, shit, Stark, the last I even heard, you actually liked pussy. Or are you just gay for Norse gods?" Clint sniggered again, before Natasha punched him in the shoulder. "Ow! Nat!"

"It's too early for your mouth, Clint, but if you don't stop I'm sure the good Captain can find some soap." Romanova grinned, baring her teeth, and Loki hid his smirk behind a gulp of coffee.

"Aww Nat, you're just grumpy that I got to turn off my hearing aids last night, and you had to listen to them make out like teenagers," chuckled Barton as he dodged another half-hearted shove from Natasha.

"Wait," Tony looked alert and Loki stiffened as the genius sat up, "did you say hearing aids? You wear hearing aids? How come I've never seen them? Why haven't I _designed_ them? What the actual fuck Barton!"

Bruce and Natasha laughed as Barton scowled and muttered, "Fuck."

"Fuck, as in you weren't going to tell me? I'm hurt Clint, I thought we were friends." Tony jumped up from his chair and stalked over to Barton, reaching for the archer's head, and Barton shoved Stark away with one arm. "Aw come on Clint, don't hold out on me! Don't tell me you have implants, I can't even see-"

"Leave it Tony," Romanova interrupted, as she refilled the French press with boiling water beside Rogers at the camp stove.

"No way," Tony protested, "Come on Barton, just let me see if I can make 'em bett— Eeek!" Loki looked up as Tony squeaked to find the genius held in a headlock by Romanova as she steered him away from Barton. "Okay, okay, okay, let me go! Nat! I'll be good!" Tony pandered.

Loki smirked as the master assassin dragged Tony away, and when she released him, Tony grimaced and made an embellished display of rubbing his neck. For a moment Loki worried that Romanova had actually injured the mortal, but then a grin lit up Tony's face when Romanova offered him the rest of the coffee she'd pressed, and Loki made an effort to let the strain fall from his shoulders.

The familiar smell of the Captain's pancakes drifted through the camp, and Loki looked up to see Bruce had dropped into the chair on the other side of him. Bruce raised his tea mug and clinked it carefully against Loki's coffee mug before he took a sip of tea, and Loki raised an eyebrow at the gesture.

"Earth thing," Bruce shrugged. "Like a congratulatory salute? Way to go? Huzzah? We're proud of you two?"

"The longer I am here, the more convinced I am that I shall never truly understand Midgard." Loki muttered.

"You and me both, and I'm from here." Bruce smiled.

"Honestly," Tony said as he sat again, his coffee refilled, "I came out for a good time on this camping trip but I'm feeling so attacked right now. Clint won't let me see his tech, Nat's glare is brighter than the sun this time of year, and everyone's now thinking about my sexy ass."

"I'm decidedly trying to _not _think about your ass, Tony," Steve exclaimed, "or anyone else's ass, either." he added, waving his spatula in Barton's direction.

Tony continued, as he turned towards Loki. "I think we need some space. Maybe this camping trip was too much team bonding, am I right? I feel the need to get away, put in some distance from you assholes—except you, Brucie bear, you're a peach—but I gotta get out in the world, stretch my legs a bit, get away from the rest of these losers for a few days. Maybe even another continent. Lokes, how do you feel about going to London on Monday? I think we should go to London on Monday."

"No," snapped Romanova, "not going to happen."

"It's not exactly a donut run, Tony," Steve shrugged apologetically as he handed Loki a plate of pancakes and the bottle of maple syrup.

"What, you _knew_ about that?" Tony pulled out his phone, "Jarvis, you traitor, I thought you covered our tracks."

"My sincere apologies, Sir," the tinny voice of the AI rang out from Tony's phone speaker, "I was not aware that Captain Rogers had ascertained your breakfast destination."

"Tony," Steve groaned, "You both came upstairs for coffee that morning with wind-burned cheeks, and you had powdered sugar all over the front of your hoodie."

"Well maybe we ate donuts on the roof, did you ever think about that one, Sherlock?" Tony objected.

"Sure I did. But I also sketched the sunrise that morning on the roof." Rogers smiled.

Loki chuckled nervously as Bruce whispered, "Busted." He chanced a look over at Romanova to find her steady gaze on Tony, as though she was debating whether it was even worth reporting this particular parole violation to SHIELD or if she'd rather just threaten Tony privately.

"Well it doesn't matter what either of you two think," Tony grinned, as he forked a bite of Loki's pancakes into his mouth, "because our London vacation has already been approved by Fury. I'm taking the mini HERB Finder to Foster to work on the HERB Jam, and Lokes gets to come with because without him the mini HERB Finder only picks up low-level interference from the airport. And some teenager's science project."

"Foster couldn't be persuaded to return to New York for this conference?" Romanova intoned, "Even by SHIELD?"

"Yeah, funny story," Tony finished another bite of Loki's pancakes, and the god rolled his eyes and handed Tony the plate, "a few years ago, SHIELD briefly stole all her research on Einstein-Rosen bridges, so strangely she's not so keen on helping them out. But me though, she'll do a favor for."

"A favor?" Clint snorted, wagging his eyebrows, "What did you promise her?"

Tony almost snorted his coffee he laughed so hard, and Loki glared, reaching over to pinch the mortal's arm. "Ow!" Tony complained, "I promised her additional funding! That's it!"

"Liar," chimed Natasha, and Loki turned toward Tony. The mortal looked sheepish, and was tapping the goatee on his chin with one finger.

"Stark," Loki hissed, "out with it."

He sniffed. "She kind of wanted to meet you? And I may have promised her friend the opportunity for closure? Selvig is a close friend of hers."

Barton hollered a laugh, "Wait, wait, the Foster you've been collaborating with on the device that's going to save Loki's ass from the intergalactic jack-off is _that _Foster? The one that Thor hooked up with in New Mexico?"

"Yes?" Tony's brows furrowed, and Loki noticed the tension in the mortal's face as his fingers twitched over his chin, "Does no one understand how amazing the opportunity for science is here? Besides Brucie? Who wouldn't say yes to that?"

Barton raised his hand, and Tony followed up with a one-fingered salute.

"Alright children," Steve interrupted, "If you're done with breakfast and bickering, let's pack up. Tony, come help me with your tent."

Tony grumbled but stood and obediently toddled after the Captain, as Natasha and Barton also headed back towards their sleeping hammocks. Loki noticed Bruce studying him, a curious look in his eye, and Loki looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. It was odd, Loki thought, Banner was one of Tony's closest friends, second only to the mortal's longstanding friendships with Pepper and Colonel Rhodes. And he'd congratulated Loki. _Congratulated_. As though nothing out of the ordinary for Midgard had occurred, as though… As though less than a year ago, Loki hadn't let an invading force of aliens tear up New York City.

Bruce finished the last of his tea and stood to rinse the cup, but Loki reached out quickly and laid a finger on the doctor's arm. "I would have a word with you, Bruce," the god whispered.

"Okay?" Bruce settled back in his chair. "What's up?"

"Everyone is…" Loki coughed, uncomfortable, "strangely unconcerned about last night? Even though we're both biologically male?"

Bruce chuckled. "Uh, are you asking why no one cares or why no one is surprised?"

"Both," he said, as he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

"Uh. Well, not sure how it is on Asgard, but here it's not particularly unusual nowadays, though some countries and some people are still weird about it." Bruce shrugged, "But Loki, you're living with a rather eccentric group here, I'm not sure that there's all that much that would phase this crowd."

Behind him, Loki heard Tony cursing up a blue streak after one of the tent poles had caught the mortal's finger while he was disassembling the rods, and Loki turned just barely in his chair so he could watch. He smirked as Tony caught him staring, and the genius made an exaggerated wave of his hips as the mortal bent down to remove a tent stake from the ground.

"As for why no one is surprised," Bruce said finally, "if you try to hand Tony something—coffee, a StarkTab, anything—does he take it?"

"Yes, of course," Loki murmured, reluctantly turning his attention away from Tony, "What does that matter? Is that a Midgardian custom I'm not aware of?" Loki blanched, trying to remember if he'd handed objects to any of the other Avengers.

Bruce stood up, dusting his pants off. "No, nothing like that. He doesn't like it when people hand him things. Just watch him around others, you'll see it. And there's something else… how many dates has Tony invited back to the tower, in the four months you've been living on the same floor as him?"

Loki opened his mouth to retort, then clicked his teeth together. Bruce grinned good-naturedly and clapped the god on the shoulder. "And that's why no one's exactly surprised, Loki. Even Pepper is in on the betting pool, and she dated Tony before New York."

Loki watched as Bruce shuffled away from the campsite, the bin of dirty breakfast dishes and liquid soap in his hands. Aside from Pepper's occasional visits for dinner, Tony hadn't brought anyone to the penthouse. A few of the Avengers had stopped by, of course, but no one else. And when would Tony even have gone out to meet anyone? When _had _he gone out? He was always fiddling with something in his workshop, or waking Loki from another nightmare, or trying to get the god to complete another item on that infernal list. In fact, Loki could count on two hands the nights he'd spent alone in the penthouse while Tony was away on business, and the majority of those nights had been in August and September, when Loki had first arrived at Stark tower. Certainly none since that idiotic Doom character had sent his minion to visit the tower.

And the one gala Tony had attended since Loki moved in, Tony had insisted on dragging Loki along like a prized possession. He remembered the way the women (and if Loki was honest, quite a few of the men) looked at Tony that night. Dressed in his pirate costume, but still very recognizably Tony Stark, the mortal had seemed to enjoy strutting across the room in knee high boots with that strangely puffy-sleeved shirt and sash. He oozed confidence, charm, and kissed the cheeks of so many women that Loki had lost count well before his second drink. Loki rubbed his eyes, resting his face in his hands.

How had he not noticed before? How had he not noticed that for all the talk of his playboy reputation in the media, Tony had been surprisingly reserved?

And that morning. Loki had expected Tony to laugh off Barton's accusations as foolish drabble, like any respectable warrior would have on Asgard, only to renew his affections behind closed doors at a later time. But Tony not only hadn't denied it to his friends, he'd laughed and joked back. The entire morning had bordered on surreal for Loki.

An arm snaked around his shoulders and Loki looked up to see Tony perched on the armrest of his lawn chair. He blinked in the bright light, belatedly realizing that while he'd had his head buried in his hands, the campsite had been packed up around him.

"Where'd you go, Snowflake? You were a million miles away right now." Tony pressed a kiss against Loki's forehead, and Loki shivered at the touch. "I'm already taking you to London for the next step, you don't have to journey off just yet."

Loki swallowed, and cleared his throat. "Midgard is a new and faraway place from what I am accustomed to. I'm not sure step twenty four is actually all that necessary."

Tony pulled the god to his feet as Rogers approached and took the chair, folding it quickly as the super soldier strolled off towards the Suburban. In the distance Loki saw that Clint had already climbed inside, and was sitting on top with his feet dangling inside the sunroof. The campsite was abandoned but for Tony and Loki, and the god looked down at the smaller man to find Tony's concerned brown eyes, almost pale amber in the November sunshine.

And Tony tangled his fingers in Loki's hair, and tugged the god's lips to his own. Loki closed his eyes, tasted pancakes and syrup and smoke against Tony's tongue, and sighed into the touch. If Tony wouldn't hide from his friends this newly found fascination between them, then Loki wouldn't, either. Maybe Midgard wasn't so strange after all, maybe Asgard was unusual; Loki didn't know any more.

They broke apart to the sound of Barton making retching noises and Rogers telling them to get in the car already.

"That bring you back down to Earth, Lokes?" Tony smirked, as he grabbed Loki's elbow and dragged the god towards the others.

Loki touched his fingers to his lips, feeling the smooth contours against his fingertips. It felt as though he'd walked through fire, as though he'd been burned and rebuilt and burned again, but in a pleasant fashion, and it surprised Loki to find that his lips felt as they always had, such an innocuous touch in the wake of Tony's kiss.

"Yes," the god said finally, as they neared the others, "though I have a feeling I'll need reminding quite frequently about which realm I am in, Stark."

Tony laughed, and Loki didn't even mind that he and the genius had been relegated to the cramped third row seat in the back for the drive home. He leaned against the window, stretching out his long legs across the seat as Tony stretched out the opposite direction, the smaller man's legs overlapping and tangled with Loki's as the mortal whipped out calculations on his StarkTab. Every now and then, Tony would glance up and grin or wink at Loki before he turned back to his calculations.

He couldn't remember feeling this content before, as though this moment existed only to be experienced, as a moment and a promise, as though nothing could touch him, nestled in the back of a Midgardian transport vehicle driven by one of the great heroes of this realm and legs akimbo with one of the richest men of this realm, and despite the surreality of the moment, despite knowing what monsters truly existed out there in the depths of space and hidden in the roots of Yggdrasil, Loki closed his eyes and let his cares drift away.


	25. Step 25 - Weddings

Loki loved London, of course.

The city stretched out before him was nothing like New York, yet it was similar enough that the god had enjoyed immensely looking for the differences in the sights and sounds, contrasting the two cities. London carried an energy, a depth that he hadn't found in New York's rhythm, this enigmatic place, the hustle about the town, the foggy skies and cold rain of late November, and the hints of color that popped up as the city prepared for the upcoming festivities for a seasons of festivities that Tony had told him about. (Supposedly there had been a god born of man who had died and many Midgardians still celebrated his birth? It was all so esoterically strange to Loki.)

And now on the continued slow progression up into the sky high above the River Thames, Loki stood at the windows, one hand resting on the railing as he looked as far as the eye could see. The sun would set soon, marking the end of their first week in this strange city, and Loki looked out to see the landmarks he could recognize from his reading. Big Ben. Westminster. Buckingham, which supposedly was a palace and Tony had forbidden him from visiting despite its historic significance, in light of the fact that the monarch of this nation resided within its walls. Even further he thought he could make out the top of the obelisk that had its twins in New York and another Midgardian city.

This contraption that Tony had rented out for the evening, the gigantic ferris wheel that rotated on the southern bank of the river, moved slow enough for Loki to observe quietly the sights of the city from a pale glass pod, and Loki let himself smile despite it all. Tony bumped his shoulder and Loki glanced over to find the mortal handing him a glass filled with scotch. The god smiled, sniffing first the aroma before taking a sip. Apparently, renting out the entirety of the London Eye without ordering beverages or meals delivered as well was far above and beyond a courtesy that the British were capable of, and when Tony and Loki arrived for their exclusive rental, there had been several bottles of the finest and glassware awaiting them.

"Must we return to New York soon?" Loki asked, as he leaned his forehead against the cool glass to look down at the river, where the tides were slowly rolling in.

"Afraid so, Cupcake. I need to stop by my London R&D office for a few days, but after that we should probably head back," Tony snorted, "probably before Fury sends Nat to collect us. You like it here? Better than New York?"

Loki shrugged, before he took a sip of his scotch.

"Huh." Tony smiled, "Wasn't expecting that."Which, Loki smirked, was the understatement of the hour. London had been nothing like Loki expected. From the first moment when he and Tony had arrived, the air chillier than New York and a private car waiting to whisk the pair away from Tony's private jet (which, if Bruce were to be believed, Tony's private jet was unlike anything that ordinary mortals experienced when traveling such distances, both in comfort and speed), to arriving at the hotel penthouse—where Loki finally learned what the number of stars Tony willingly slept under meant—Loki had seen more of this part of Midgard in a few days than he'd seen from the windows of Tony's tower in four months.

And Tony had relished the opportunity to venture out. He'd taken Loki to restaurants, on an official first date (as Tony described the concept, but it seemed silly to Loki, all things considered), and escorted the god from historical site to site when he wasn't holed up working on the HERB Jam with Foster.

It wasn't that Tony was any less recognizable in London; no, it seemed that there were more cameras here than in New York, and Loki had caught sight of their photos in at least three publications since their arrival, but the difference was in how the population of this city treated him. In New York, countless times Loki had seen or heard of Tony being trailed by the media, or Tony would return from a brisk walk looking hounded, and out of breath as though he'd sprinted to escape. Romanova had mentioned that New Yorkers felt particularly brash about asking for Stark's autograph, really the autograph of any of the Avengers. Which alone was a strange concept, because why would a Midgardian without magic desire the signed name of any of its heroes? For what purpose could it be used? Loki's inquiries on the internet had labeled such things collectors items, and Loki had briefly wondered if the Collector collected signatures for any nefarious purpose, but he couldn't think of any.

But in London, the people let Tony be. Sure, the cameras followed him, and he was fairly certain that there was at least one image of he and Tony holding hands as they strolled the grounds of Hyde Park, but the staff at the high-end establishments were more than willing to isolate the pair, protecting them from the cameras and providing privacy of a sort Loki wasn't sure Tony experienced as frequently in New York. After even a few days in London, Loki had noticed how much more relaxed Tony was, how much calmer he slept at night.

Maybe it wasn't that he preferred London, but rather that he preferred Tony in London, less tense without his normal obligations, and seemingly alleviated of some of his concerns.

A few minutes later, Loki clarified: "It's not perhaps that I like it better than New York, but rather that I've been permitted to experience more of this place. I've kept to the tower in New York, mostly. And the city treats you differently, more like a famous eccentric that has stopped by rather than their own personal public property."

Tony hummed, and Loki knew that sound, knew it meant the mortal was thinking of something, but he couldn't bring himself to worry about it now. Soon it would be dark, and Loki wanted to see the city lights, see how London looked as night fell, as this_ planet_ rotated away from the light (and what a strange concept for someone who had grown up on Asgard). He was recovering, he supposed, if the sight of stars and night sky, even away from the bright flames of the bonfire a few weeks ago, had ceased to frighten him.

It hadn't been entirely enjoyable, of course.

Meeting the woman that Thor had befriended and her colleagues had been, at best, unpleasant. Loki closed his eyes briefly, trying to remember the indignant look upon her face when Tony caught her arm before she could slap Loki, while her assistant in the background had pulled out her phone and began hooting, "Fight, fight, fight! Awwww come on Stark, don't ruin the fun!"

And Foster had turned to Loki and spat in his face instead, shouting at him: "That's for New York!"

And Tony, amazing Tony, had laughed, and said, "Jane, he threw me out my own window and I'm fairly certain that we might be dating now. So careful, sweetheart, you can't have _all_ of the Norse gods!"

Tony's arm came around his waist and Loki put his arm across his shoulders, relaxing into the touch as Tony leaned his head on Loki's shoulder. Outside the curved windows, the sun slipped lower across the sky, a bright orange ball that dragged downward and bathed the city in warm light.

Later, when Foster had calmed down and Tony had gotten her to read his report about the portal over New York, she had shuffled from foot to foot and apologized for spitting on him. Loki had inclined his head in the barest of nods, which the infuriating woman had taken as a sign that she was forgiven and free to demand information from Loki.

"Did Thor, um, mention me at all?" she had asked, and Loki remembered blinking like a lost hound, unsure which way to follow the hunt.

"Uh, Jane, maybe we should-" Tony interrupted.

"Because he said he would return, but it's been _years_."

"I've not spoken on civil terms with Thor since before he managed to get himself banished to this realm, Ms. Foster," Loki hissed. "I wouldn't presume to know what his intentions are now."

"Oh," she sighed, "not even after New York? I mean, he's your brother, right? I know you guys had some sort of issues before, and Thor's friends thought you might have snapped or something, when they arrived in New Mexico, but-"

Loki gaped at her like she'd undertaken to confound him further, as Tony quickly caught his hand and squeezed, almost painfully, rooting the god in place. He opened his mouth to respond, but nothing occurred, and he tried again, but was equally confounded. As though she thought he would be able to even think about what Thor's plans were, when he stood beaten and muzzled and had not slept in years, as though he couldn't comprehend what level of stupidity this mortal possessed to believe those to be important questions, and if that was the case, for what reason had Stark dragged him out here, to this forsaken city on Midgard, if she was so stupid as to pine over that muscle-bound idiot for years, what help could she _possibly_ offer on the HERB Jam?

"He was banished on Midgard for four whole days. Days! Over two years ago!" Loki snapped, and turned his wild gaze to Tony, "Is this normal on Midgard? This… this… infatuation with the unknown, with that which has been only available in so temporary a timeframe? Is it because your lives are so short?"

"Well, we talked a lot in those four days," Jane defended. "And besides, didn't he come back for a few days later on to talk with SHIELD, aren't you still on probation with Asgard? That's what Erik said."

Loki blanched, and Tony put a cautious hand on his shoulder, the mortal's eyes scanning Loki's face and fingers for any signs of blue.

"Jane, uh, maybe you and Darcy should go get us some lunch? We're at a good stopping point, right? Right." Tony said, as he pulled out his wallet and whipped out a black card towards Darcy. "Here kid. Get lost, come back at least an hour from now."

"Yes sir, Mister Stark, sir! Come on Jane, we're not wanted, and we have Tony Stark's Visa Black. How quickly can we get to Mayfair?" Darcy, ever quick on the uptake, had begun dragging Jane out the door, but the scientist apparently was not to be dissuaded.

"What? Why? I'm just trying to understand. He obviously came back again after New York, is there a reason he hasn't returned since then?" Jane demanded.

"Yes," Tony had uncharacteristically snapped, "The bifrost is broken. So Thor only gets sent down for emergencies, and guess who decides what emergencies are? All-Daddy Odin. So I suppose meeting up with his Earth-bound lover is _not_ on the Asgard list of approved emergencies. Sorry, sweetheart."

Jane rolled her eyes at Tony, and pulled her hand out of Darcy's grip. "That's not what I asked. Besides, we were hardly lovers, I mean."

"Yet!" cackled Darcy, before she began chanting something as she pulled Jane again towards the door, the song involving Thor and Jane sitting in a tree for some unknown reason.

"My sincere apologies, Miss Foster," Loki managed, as the words of Darcy's song wafted into his consciousness and his words ceased to fail him, "I had no idea the level of your affections even after all this time. Perhaps when communications between the realms are restored, we will discuss with Director Fury the political implications of seeing to an arranged _marriage_ with the heir to Asgard's throne, as clearly you are willing to make that sacrifice for your realm."

"What!" she had exclaimed, and Loki took pleasure in the dark cackle from her friend Darcy. But Tony had seen the whole thing, and Loki wasn't sure he liked the dark glint in the mortal's eye, as though Loki had accidentally revealed too much about his life on Asgard, as though Loki had said something that Tony wouldn't release until he understood the point, and had dissected it and reassembled it in a way that the mortal could comprehend, or at least live with.

After the troublesome Foster and her sidekick had left with Tony's credit card, Loki had snarled and shoved over a chair and one of the smaller bookshelves, before he sank down on the ratty couch that Darcy convinced Loki and Tony to drag downstairs on the second day after their arrival. And Tony, he had decided the best way to calm Loki's temper was to straddle Loki's lap and kiss the god, his tongue rough and demanding as Loki tried valiantly to resist in a fit of temper, until he relaxed and sighed and clung to the mortal, his hands fisting in the material of Tony's t-shirt, and kissed him back just as forcefully.

It had become apparent very quickly to Loki, that Tony enjoyed reminding him that he was on Midgard, perhaps a bit more often than was strictly necessary, but Loki wasn't one to complain. Not about that, at least.

And most surprising of all, meeting Foster's colleague, the man Loki had used to open the portal for the Chitauri, hadn't been all that terrible. Erik Selvig had arrived on the third day, entering the workshop like a frightened horse as he looked first to where Tony and Foster had situated themselves around the mini HERB Finder backpack before he scanned the room and found Loki sitting on the couch with his StarkTab.

Before Foster or Tony could acknowledge the man, Darcy had called out "Erik!" from across the room, and then added, "Put your pants back on!" and Loki had looked down, underneath the desk between himself and Selvig, to discover that indeed, the mortal had removed his trousers (but thankfully had retained his undergarments).

That, Loki thought, made everything that followed slightly easier to accept.

Selvig had waved off Darcy and Foster's admonishments to replace his trousers, insisting that it helped him to think as he briefly shook Tony's hand (and Tony's eyebrows literally could not go any higher, Loki was amused to note), before the scientist had dragged a chair over to where Loki sat, and demanded to know whether SHIELD knew about The Other and Thanos.

That got Tony's attention, unfortunately, but Loki was still relieved and a bit proud that he didn't dissolve into his Jotun form despite how startled he was by the man's question.

"Doctor Selvig, I-" Loki had hesitated. He hadn't thought that his fears bled through the connection. Had they done so for Barton, or was that connection different, because Loki had used the scepter rather than established it from such a terrible distance (and under more terrifying circumstances)?

"Erik," the scientist corrected, "You were in my head for almost a year, it seems inappropriate to address me formally. Besides, I'm trying to not have an existential crisis here, considering you and Thor were stories in my childhood. I'm not entirely sure this is actually happening, to be honest."

Loki grimaced, "I assure you, this is real. Though many of the stories here on Midgard are not truthful."

Selvig only chuckled, "Sounds like a conversation to be had over pints. But you have told SHIELD, yes? About Thanos?"

"Yes," Tony chimed in, as he came to sit on the arm of the sofa beside Loki, his feet perched on the cushions, "and we're dealing with it, Doctor Selvig. That's partly why we're here, working with Jane on the HERB Jam."

Selvig nodded, then twisted his hands in a nervous gesture. "Good. Good. I don't think I want to know why you fear him, just knowing that you… uh… a _God_ fears him is enough for me. But I had to know. I had to know."

"Selv-," Loki grimaced, "Erik, what else did you see, during our, ah, connection?"

The man grinned, his teeth showing and almost feral, and Loki felt unnerved, as though more of himself from New York had bled through the connection to Selvig than intended.

"I knew you were afraid. I knew you didn't want to win, that you kept pushing at SHIELD, at the Avengers, looking to remove their weaknesses before it was important. I knew you were trying to do something—something else—so you overlooked my design failures, the ones that let Black Widow shut it down with the scepter."

Then the doctor looked up at Foster, and surprise registered in his eyes, and his scowl bled away into a gentle befuddlement.

"I also know that there are certain, ah, aspects of my personality that are not mine up here," Selvig continued, tapping his forehead, "Anger that is not mine. Memories about hunts with Thor, about his friends saying unkind things, things that are not mine to remember. But I'll keep them safe, I won't tell. I understand, you know."

Loki swallowed carefully. "When Asgard returns my seidr, I can help to examine those pathways and restore your own responses. Remove what lingering connection now presently ails you."

Foster looked surprised, and Loki realized she was carrying a pair of trousers for Selvig. The man smiled sheepishly as he looked down again, to realize he was not wearing trousers, and for the second time in ten minutes, repeated "Thanks Jane. But it helps me think, not to have trousers on."

And Loki had sighed, as Selvig stood and wandered away. It was clear that the mortal had been deeply affected by his time under Loki's control, and it was another point of regret, another moment where Loki wondered if it would have been better had he refused, had he let Thanos direct him like a puppet on strings and accepted the coward's death after. But then he'd never have met Tony, never lived. Never let himself understand or accept what this world had tried to show him, again and again.

"You enjoying the view, Snowflake? Because it's sorta better if your eyes are open." Tony said, as the mortal planted a gentle kiss on Loki's jaw, and Loki let his eyes fall open. The Eye had reached the bottom of the circumference again and was on another upward stride; this close, the waves of the Thames were visible, rough and windblown by the cold air outside of the pod.

"My apologies, I am distracted," Loki murmured.

"Oh?" Tony grinned, wagging his eyebrows. "Anything I can help with?"

Loki grinned back, "You already have."


	26. Step 26 - Touching Everyone You Know

Returning to New York in time for the first dusting of snow to stick across the city would have been more enjoyable, Loki thought, had Doom not chosen that moment to attack the city.

"J, where are they?" Tony called as the suit snapped in place across his body as he strolled towards the edge of the platform.

"Near the northeast corner of Central Park. The present incursion appears to involve multiple of his usual DoomBots, several of which are presently heading this direction, Sir. Shall I provide a flight path for interception?"

"You're a peach, Jarv."

Loki had trailed after Tony on the landing ramp as the mortal suited up, and Tony turned suddenly to catch Loki's shoulder. "Snowflake, don't do anything stupid," he said, "We've upped the security, remember? Once you're back inside, anything other than me landing on the tower platform will get a very nasty surprise."

Loki scowled, "I'm not a damsel in distress, Stark."

Tony's lip curled into a smirk and he pecked a kiss on Loki's cheek, "No, just a really old and about to be incredibly pissed off God with jetlag. Seriously, Lo, stay safe?"

Loki huffed but nodded, and Stark grinned as the faceplate snapped in place and he rocketed off the platform moments later.

Once inside the penthouse, Loki heard the enhanced locks slide into place and he paced restlessly before the penthouse windows. Outside he could see in the distance the orange-red glare of Tony's suit, and he fingered the empty space where his knives should be kept.

"Mr. Lie-Smith, if it may provide some comfort to your situation, it appears that Doom may believe that you and Sir are still indisposed in London."

"Oh?" Loki frowned, "and how would he know where we were?"

An image materialized on one of the penthouse's numerous holographic displays, and Loki strolled over to study the image himself and Tony, sipping cocktails through a window at the May Fair in London. Loki's face was obscured by a curtain of dark hair around his jaw line, but even in the photograph Tony's eyes twinkled, as though he had just discovered the secret to immortality. Below, a second image a moment later showed Tony with his head thrown back, laughing laudably at something Loki had said. He tried to remember what had made the mortal laugh; it was something about growing up with Thor, he was sure, but he couldn't remember.

The headline read, "WHO IS STARK'S MYSTERY DATE? IS THE WORLD'S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR GAY?" Which was absurd, Loki thought, because of course he was happy, just _look_ at the photographs.

"Jarvis, are you watching Stark?"

"As always, Sir. Would you like me to share the video feed to his suit?"

"If you can do so with alerting him, yes. I don't want to be a distraction. If you would display any surrounding camera angles for the other Avengers as well, that would be ideal."

"You've spent too much around Sir, sir, if you are requesting additional video surveillance. I'll be sure not to alert SHIELD to your new found interests in security cameras." Jarvis teased, and several more displays arranged themselves in a semicircle around Loki.

"See that you don't, Jarvis," Loki's lip curled upward in a half smirk, "It would be terribly unpleasant to stay with Director Fury as a guest again, and would certainly put a dampener in my current proclivities."

The screens shifted again to arrange four camera screens around Loki; one of Tony's view-screen as he battled those pestilent DoomBots, and three others of lower resolution in which the various members of the Avengers flitted in and out across the camera view as Jarvis rotated on a semi-instantaneous basis between different security feeds.

As usual, Barton had picked a spot high above the city and called positions to the others as he picked off the bots one by one with his customized arsenal. Romanova and Steve appeared to be working in tandem as he launched her onto the back of a DoomBot before he threw his shield at another, as the Black Widow jammed her wrists into the neck of the first bot and jumped as the thing began sparking dangerously. And in the background, the green behemoth that Loki still couldn't find him himself to associate with the gentle mannered doctor that he'd come to consider an ally, if not a friend, had taken a bot in each hand and begun using them like one might play with the toy action figures he'd observed on television. Too bad the arrogant Victor Von Doom wasn't likely in one of those metal suits as well.

Rage burned in his gut as he watched the Avengers fight off the metallic abominations, as he sat in the comfortable luxury of Tony's tower, cozy and warm. If only he had his seidr back, if only he weren't made weak by this mortal body. But even that rang false to the trickster as he watched Romanova backflip again from a falling DoomBot. _She_ certainly wasn't stronger than most humans, but her limitations were no limitation to her participation. No, Loki grimaced as the Widow took a nasty hit from one of the bots, his limitations were of his own making, the terms of his probation, his desire for the goodwill of the Avengers, of Tony. And fear, blinding fear of what would happen to him if Earth decided to remove him prematurely, if Thanos came looking for him on Earth.

When The Other and the chitauri came for him.

Something caught Loki's eye and he squinted at the display. There, in the very top right of the image, was something hidden in the dark doorway to the rooftop stairs behind Barton.

"Jarvis," he ordered, "Maximize the bottom left window," The camera view showing Barton expanded, and Loki studied the blinking red light. "In the doorway behind Barton, there is a red light, upper right corner of the doorframe that doesn't appear to be part of the Midgardian design. Could you increase the resolution of that image?"

"Displaying now," Jarvis said as the display pixilated before it resolved to show what appeared to be a smooth metallic device with one flashing red light and several jumbled wires plainly visible behind a clear panel.

"Damn!" Loki shouted, "Jarvis, tell Barton to get off the roof! Tell Tony-"

"I have added you to the Avengers' communications frequency, Sir," Jarvis responded, and the penthouse filled with echoes of chatter as Loki took in the sounds of the Avengers in the heat of battle. He could hear Tony calling shots and the roar of the repulsors as he fired, and Steve warned Natasha of another DoomBot behind her, before the man swore himself and Loki thought he heard the sound of Rogers being knocked to the ground.

"Get off the roof, Hawkeye!" Loki roared.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's Bag of Cats doing on the party line?" Barton's annoyed voice rang out.

Loki ignored him, instead barking out, "Tony, there's an incendiary device of some sort on the roof behind him, get him off-"

"I'm on my way," Tony wheezed, and Loki's heart clenched at how tired Tony sounded, before the mortal snarked back, "Hawkeye, ya ready to fly, little birdy, cause-"

Then the red light behind Barton stopped blinking, and the display bled white. The screen became brighter and brighter until Loki had to shield his eyes, and when he opened them again, the image was gone.

"Jarvis?" Loki cried.

"It would appear that the bomb has exploded, Sir," Jarvis replied. "I believe the device also incorporated some form of EMP, as I've lost communications with Sir as well."

"EMP?" the god grimaced at the unfamiliar phrase. He could hear the ominous roar of the green beast as another boom echoed across the city.

"My apologies, Mr. Lie-Smith. An EMP is an electromagnetic pulse, or a transient electromagnetic disturbance. Such a burst of energy is best comparable to the effects of a lightening strike or smaller nuclear reaction response with regards to electronic equipment."

"Electro—" Loki croaked, his heart hammering in his chest, "Jarvis, will such a disturbance harm Tony's reactor?"

"Sir has taken precautions to limit if not prevent such a blast from affecting the reactor, Mr. Lie-Smith. By my calculations, the statistical probability that such a blast has damaged the reactor is less than one percent."

Loki exhaled, but a thought occurred to him. "Then why can you not locate him, Jarvis? Should not the suit be immune to such effects if its power source is?"

"Not necessarily, Mr. Lie-Smith. Individually, there are components of the suit that may be affected, and the communications equipment relied upon by the Avengers functions outside the energy source from Mr. Stark's reactor."

"Iron Man! Iron Man, do you copy?" Roger's voice rang out, as Jarvis unnecessarily added that communications with Rogers and Romanov had been restored.

The silence that followed was unnerving. Stark was _never_ silent. Loki listened as Rogers and Romanov refocused on battle, with nary a hint of noise from Stark in the background. Or Barton, he grimaced, but it hadn't even looked from the feed like Barton made it from the roof before the device exploded. It was almost too perfectly timed, as though someone knew the precise moment to detonate the device.

As though someone else was listening in on their conversation.

Loki sank into the couch, his hands clenched into sharp fists. For the first time he keenly felt his inability to fight in this limited, _stupid_ form, without his seidr and bound in strength by the All-Father himself. For the first time since he learned of his sentence—probation on Midgard in the custody of its defenders until such time as SHIELD and Asgard shall later determine and decide to revoke his probation— Loki felt ill, physically ill, as though Thor had punched him in the stomach during a sparing match as a child, and Loki, poor little skinny Loki, hadn't been quick enough to dodge the attack. He swallowed bile as the silence stretched uncomfortably, his shoulders twitching at another roar of the beast in the distance.

"Gatekeeper," he whispered, "If you are watching, and Stark is injured— if Stark is harmed in any way, I beg of you, Heimdall, ask the All-Father to release my seidr. Please, Heimdall. _Please_."

Tony couldn't have been caught in the blast, couldn't have fallen like a stone from great height as he attempted to catch Barton, could he? Had Barton even made it off the roof before that crude device exploded? Loki buried his face in his hands, guilt and anger pooling in his gut in an unholy mixture. If only- if only the god had just _kept his Norns-damned silver tongued mouth shut_, Tony wouldn't have been anywhere near that explosion, wouldn't possibly have fallen from heights even he couldn't survive in his damnable suit, not in his weak mortal form, not as a human. Barton would be dead, if he weren't already, but not Tony. Norns please, Loki grimaced, not like this. His eyes burned with unshed tears.

"You may want to view this, Mr. Lie-Smith," Jarvis's voice almost sounded relieved. "It appears that Agent Barton was able to vacate the rooftop in time."

Loki looked up, and Jarvis replayed the transmission on a holo-display beside the god. The image flickered again, to show a grainy view shot through a window of what appeared to be a Midgardian workplace, judging from the furnishings, and the video zoomed in to find Barton on the rooftop. His trademark compound bow dangling from one hand, the archer's keen eyes scanned the sky, before his other hand went to his ear, and moments later, the archer leapt up on the retaining wall and extended his arms outward, falling for perhaps several stories before Tony plucked him from the sky as the image irradiated in brilliant white from the explosion. The cameraman cursed as the windows visibly shook with the force of the blast.

The first video ended, and seconds later another began, this one monochromatic and gritty. Loki could just make out the very edges of the Iron Man suit above the rim of a crater in a Manhattan street, with Hawkeye groaning and rubbing his ears as he pushed himself to his knees beside the crater.

Yet Tony had not moved.

"Jarvis," Loki whispered, "Is he-?" Loki closed his eyes briefly, his gut churning, before the AI responded again.

"I am receiving limited feedback from the suit. The suit is severely damaged. Fortunately the blast also took out several of the remaining DoomBots, and Captain Rogers and Agent Romanov have, as they say, cleaned house. Agent Romanov is approaching Sir's position now."

The screen cleared again, and this time the image displayed the logo for a local news station, the text across the bottom of the screen proclaiming the feed to be live from the Upper East Side. Loki's jaw clenched as he watched Romanova sprint to Barton's side. She touched him on the shoulder carefully, and the assassin spun, surprised. Romanova made some odd movements with her hands before Barton he nodded to her and pointed to his ears, before she and Barton knelt beside Tony and began laboriously removing sections of armor from Tony's form.

Piece by piece, the red and gold disappeared, until a dazed-looking Tony emerged to sit up and wave dramatically towards the camera. A roar from the crowds gathered behind the cameraman startled Loki, and he blinked back tears as he realized that hundreds of humans had gathered at the barriers around the street placed hastily by NYPD, and stood there, cheering as Tony's crumpled suit was peeled away. The camera zoomed in, and Loki wiped at an errant tear as he saw the mortal's face. His nose was bloodied and broken, it was clear even from this distance, and a bruise blossomed on the mortal's jaw. Tony's left shoulder seemed to hang unnaturally, but he was grinning like an idiot and waiving his good arm so valiantly that Loki could swear he saw Romanova roll her eyes.

Shortly thereafter, Rogers arrived on the scene, jogging up with that ridiculous shield on his arm, and the roar of the crowd grew deafening, before a black Midgardian transport vehicle arrived and SHIELD agents loaded everyone inside.

As the live transmission ended, Loki stood and paced to the window. When he had his seidr back, Loki vowed, this supposed mortal magician, this Victor von Doom, would suffer the wrath of the gods. He cursed, his hands clenched, and vowed it again. Doom would _suffer_.

Outside the sky had taken an orange tint as the sun slipped lower across the Manhattan skyline, and Loki rested his forehead on the window. He squinted at the streets below, leaning into the very window he'd thrown Tony through almost nine months ago, as though if he looked just a bit further into the distance he could see the transport, carrying the mortal and the other Avengers home. The glass was cool against his almost-feverish skin, and he let his shoulders sag with relief. Anger bled away into gut-wrenching fear, and sweet relief, and his knees gave way.

Loki sank to the floor, his arms curled into his sides, and he closed his eyes, the darkness of his thoughts surrounding him, for those brief moments when he'd assumed the worst, when he'd thought that no mortal could have survived that fall, when he'd thought Tony would be lost forever.

* * *

Loki woke later to a gentle touch on his shoulder in the darkened penthouse. He flinched violently, smacking his head on the glass before he managed to open his eyes.

Romanova had sat herself before him, her legs folded and something resting in her lap, one hand extended as though she had been the one to wake him, and Loki glanced carefully around his surroundings. The lights were dimmed across the room, and outside the city sparkled in the blues and greens and yellows of night. Loki straightened his back to lean against the window and extended his long legs outward, carefully stretching the kinks out of his shoulders.

"Is Stark back?" he managed finally, his throat dry and aching more than he thought it should, and he swiped at his eyes to find them tight, as though he'd cried for hours on his mother's knee as a child.

"No," she said, and Loki's eyes widened in alarm before she held up her hand, "He's fine, just staying in medical overnight on Banner's orders. Sedated, of course. Dislocated shoulder with a small rotator tear, and a possible concussion, but otherwise he will be fine. He should be back in the morning."

Loki nodded once and rubbed his face, "And Clint?" he surprised himself, and his face scrunched into a scowl at the name, unnatural on his tongue.

Romanova's lips curled into the barest of smiles. "He lived. The blast destroyed his hearing aids, so he's pissed off and being difficult. But he lived."

"I am glad," Loki said, and he was almost annoyed to realize his voice had sounded sincere, as though he was too tired to even muster the sarcasm that he'd hidden behind for centuries.

Without warning, Romanova pushed the object in her lap into his hands, and Loki cradled the object, surprised by the weight. "These are for you," she said, "to replace the ones that Doom took, or those last two that you believe to be carefully hidden in your closet."

Loki felt his mouth drop open as he pushed away the material to find perfectly formed and weighted throwing knives made entirely of some smooth stone compound that he couldn't identify. He'd seen these before, he thought as he lifted one small knife to study the weight. They were small but easily palmed, and weighted perfectly for his fighting strengths. He made to lay out the knives as he pulled back the material, in total five throwing knives in a perfectly formed holster and two longer weapons for close combat.

He looked up to find Romanova watching him, and he hesitated, fingering the sharp edge of one of the knives carefully. The edge glittered as though it were composed of minerals, and it was sharp even carefully held against his fingertip, the weight behind the weapon hefty enough that he had no doubt it would pierce through the metallic shell of a DoomBot when handled properly. The skin of the material almost swallowed the light of the room, its surface smooth and dark, and void of metallic inlays.

"To what do I owe this display of trust, Agent?" he finally said, his voice lilting on her title intentionally.

"Natasha," she corrected, tutting her lip as she stood. "I don't know how many times I have to tell you that. Now come eat, Jarvis ordered pizza and Steve's making cookies."

Loki huffed an annoyed breath, but trailed after her to the elevator.


	27. Step 27 - Finding money in your pocket

Loki woke in the darkness to find a presence hovering on the edge of his vision, a dark form that looked out of place as it sat precariously on the rim of the mattress.

"Dim lights please, Jarvis," Loki called as he sat up slowly, careful not to dislodge the figure.

Gentle light filled the room, and the figure materialized into Tony's battered form. Loki reached a careful hand to skim his fingers across the material wrapped around Stark's left arm, which positioned his arm securely across his chest. Stark's face was a smattering of bruises, with white splinting tape around his nose and two small strips across his brow covering a nasty cut. His bottom lip was bruised and split, and Loki thought he could see the edges of a bruise against Tony's left temple.

"Lo-Lo," Tony slurred; his voice was gruff and he sounded intoxicated to Loki.

"I thought you were to be kept sedated and remain overnight for observation."

"Was," Tony mumbled. "Left. Couldn't sleep. Sang song that never ends so they'd release me. Those meds got nothing on scotch."

Loki bit down a chuckle. "Was that wise? Aren't you injured?"

"Concussion maybe. Dislocated shoulder. Broke my nose, maybe a rib," Tony snorted. "Wake me up every few hours, Jarvis?"

"As always, it is my pleasure to keep you from dying, Sir."

"Dying?" Loki choked back a sob. "I thought you were not badly hurt, I thought-"

"Hey, hey. Snowflake, I'm not dying. Bad joke, Jarvis," the mortal grumbled, his free hand reaching for Loki's arm. "Just wanted to come home. Not dying."

"My apologies, Mr. Lie-Smith. I assure you, I am monitoring Sir's vitals and will alert medical authorities should assistance be needed. He is, indeed, not dying."

"See? Just tired," Tony muttered. "Wanted to come home. Sleep."

Tony leaned forward into Loki's shoulder, and the god put a careful arm around the mortal's head. He slowly eased the mortal forward, until he lay on his back with his injured shoulder positioned opposite, and Loki settled down beside him, careful to keep his distance. Stark looked terrible; deep purple rimmed his eyes and his skin where it wasn't bruised and battered had taken a sallow color. A small bandage covered the crook of his elbow and Loki didn't want to know what sort of backwards Midgardian medical techniques had required additional holes to be punched through the mortal's skin as part of his treatment.

"Lights off please, Jarvis," Loki said, and he flinched in surprise as Tony's uninjured arm tucked around his shoulders and pulled Loki towards him, until Tony tucked the god's head against his and tangled his fingers in Loki's long hair.

"Sleep," Tony whispered.

When he woke in the morning—and it was clearly morning even though no light shown through the blackout shades of Tony's bedroom—Tony had not moved an inch in the night, his one good arm still carefully tucked against Loki's hair. A quiet chime alerted Loki that Jarvis had a message, and the god looked up to the opposite wall as words materialized in the air.

"Ms. Potts is waiting for you in the lounge, Mr. Lie-Smith," the words read, and Loki carefully disentangled himself from Tony' s sleeping form before he pulled on his jeans and padded out.

"Good morning!" Potts greeted him as he stepped across the room, and she absently pointed at a mug and a box on the coffee table before she turned back to the laptop on her knees. Loki looked at the table, surprised to find that Potts had brought him tea and a box of donuts, which Loki smiled delicately as he accepted the mug and selected a confectionary-sugar covered donut from the box. "You should probably get dressed after you eat that," Potts said. "Nat will be here shortly."

"Pardon?" Loki said, licking the sugar from his fingers.

"Oh!" Potts huffed a chuckle as she covered her face with her hands. "Goddamn it, Tony," and Loki frowned, wondering why she seemed upset all of a sudden. "He didn't tell you, did he?"

"He didn't tell me what?" Loki hesitated. "Does this have something to do with SHIELD?"

"Goodness, no!" exclaimed Potts. "We're taking you shopping."

"Shopping?" he coughed, choking on his tea. "Whatever for?"

The elevator dinged behind him as Potts handed him a small plastic card, and Loki took it, examining the smooth plastic. He recognized this object, he mused, it was similar in design and color to the object Tony used in London to pay for their purchases while wandering through the city or at various cafes. And then he read the name on the card.

"Loki Lyesmith?" he asked, as he looked over to see Romanova perched on the armchair to his right. "Is this one of the documents that SHIELD has agreed to provide?"

"Not exactly," Potts said. "Tony had me order you a credit card, and-"

"It's Christmas next week, you have to buy a gift for Stark." Romanova interrupted. "It's an Earth tradition, or at least, it is a tradition on the part of Earth Stark hails from. And besides, it's money in your pocket, or as close as it comes on Earth, nowadays."

Loki sighed. Somehow Romanova always knew what item he was to work through on the list. It was almost as though Tony had somehow made a point of secretly updating his fellow Avengers.

"I'm going to have to decline, unfortunately. Stark is still injured, he shouldn't be left alone." Loki tried to return the card to Potts.

"Tony's not going to be released from medical until this afternoon." Romanova said, and Loki paused before he turned to look at her. It was almost as though she didn't realize Tony _had _already been released, and Loki bit the edge of his lip in what he hoped she would interpret as a nervous gesture as the thought occurred to him that perhaps no one actually knew Tony had left the medical ward. Had Jarvis organized an escape for his inventor, and not told Loki last night? That was a level of secrecy he had not expected from what he understood to be a programmable artificial construct. But this, the ability to make such a decision, struck Loki as something greater, something almost bordering on magical.

"Is that so?" Loki mused, careful to keep his expression neutral. "Then I suppose I am out of arguments." Loki gracefully came to his feet, and turned towards the penthouse stairs. "I'll return shortly, prepared for our outing."

He ignored Romanova and Potts as he made his way across the room, but once he reached his closet in the old guest suite, he closed the door with a silent click, his hands thumbing the lock.

"Jarvis, can either of our guests hear me from this distance?" he whispered.

"You are well away from any prying ears, Mr. Lie-Smith. Does this conversation pertain to Mr. Stark's present whereabouts?"

"Did you _help_ him leave a healing room without authorization, Construct?" Loki demanded.

"I functioned within the parameters provided to me by my creator, Trickster."

Loki smirked as he quickly dressed. "I take it that Bruce is aware of these parameters?"

"Indeed. Sir's release from medical was, as always, conditional upon Doctor Banner being made aware and remaining within residence of the tower while the need for observation continues. And I _am_ monitoring his vitals, Mr. Lie-Smith."

Loki waived his hand dismissively. "I know you value his life, Jarvis."

The silence that followed his proclamation made Loki smile for some reason. It was ridiculously strange to become sentimental over the affections of an artificial construct that didn't contain a bodily form, yet.

When he returned, Romanova and Potts had polished off several more of the donuts and Loki followed the pair into the elevator without argument.

The experience of actually purchasing objects within the marketplaces of Midgard was something Loki had not expected to enjoy; in London, Tony had forced Loki to buy several suits and other casual outfits, and Loki had been willing to acquiesce because of how Stark _looked_ at him in those tight jeans or fitted suits that had been custom tailored to his form. But Loki had merely accepted what was provided, following along as Tony dictated to the staff a range of options and nodding his permission to various shades and patterns. The experience of actually selecting which stores to visit, and looking in particular for objects to be gifted for others? It was as unfamiliar as the traditions of Midgard. Gift-giving on Asgard was a rare thing; it was rare to celebrate the annual birth of an Aesir, but anniversaries of every one hundred years were most likely to be celebrated.

By mid-morning, Loki had become adapt at using the Midgardian payment device, signing his new name with flourish at vendor after vendor. After a short while, he had amassed quite a number of bags and items for the upcoming festivities, before Potts declared that it was time for lunch. The three settled into a secluded table for their midday meal with Potts ordering the wine, and Loki was thoroughly amused with how much he had enjoyed the outing with the two red-headed women. Aside from the occasional visit to the tower for Stark to sign company paperwork, he'd not seen Potts since that night when she had unexpectedly showed for dinner, and he found the mortal woman to be sharp and intelligent, with a quick wit and genial nature.

Several glasses of wine later, Loki regretted his earlier affections for her wit. Loki had just mentioned the story about Stark making him stand in a bin of dirt with planted flowers in the workshop, when Potts grinned and licked her lips.

"So how is it? Spill, Loki," she demanded.

Loki glanced to Romanova, to find the assassin studying him just as intently. The god picked up his wine glass and raised an eyebrow, "I was under the impression that spilling one's drink was an insult to the establishment here on Earth."

Potts rolled her eyes and Romanova cracked a smile. "It's a figure of speech. It means we want the scoop."

"The… scoop?" Loki probed.

"Well, according to the tabloids, you've landed the hottest bachelor on Earth," Pepper grinned, and Loki couldn't find any malice in her expression. She genuinely seemed to be pleased with the news, which Loki was grateful for, even if it was unexpected. "I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've been asked in the last week whether I was alright with this change, if I like the new man in Mr. Stark's life, whether this had anything to do with his decision not to provide weapons to the military any longer, whether I made Tony gay or did I know that Tony was gay when he and I were an item, which is ridiculous, because clearly he's bi. So spill it, Loki. Is he as good in bed with guys as he is with the ladies? I know he used to love receiving, but that wasn't my thing. That man, I swear, the most ambidextrous kinks list I've ever seen."

As his cheeks warmed, Loki glanced around the restaurant. The table that the matron had seated the trio at was far from the others, tucked away in an alcove by the window, and outside Loki could see the sky darkening as the winter sun ducked behind a cloud.

It wasn't merely that Potts wanted to discuss what would be a taboo topic on Asgard that bothered Loki. No, he'd come to understand that on Earth, relationships between those of the same gender were, in some regions, regarded differently than in the golden realm, were tolerated generally, if not accepted outright in certain places on Midgard. But that Potts would just so casually mention, and assume, without any sort of apparent judgment in her tone, that Tony would be willing to receive, to take the place of the woman in their relationship, to do what Loki had been taught his whole life was shameful, wrong, and painfully improper for a prince? And she mentioned it so casually, as though it truly didn't matter, when even he and Tony had not between themselves discussed any sort of arrangement? Because until this very moment, he had not assumed that Stark—the epitome of masculinity on this wayward realm—would _ever_ consent to receive rather than give?

He carefully set his wine down and pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand as his fingers grew colder and almost tinged blue at first glance. "I have no idea how to answer your inquiry, Ms. Potts. Would it be too late for me to pretend that Stark is just a friend?"

Romanova snorted loudly beside him, and he shot her a nasty glare.

"Bullshit," Potts protested. "Don't tell me the God of Lies is a prude."

Romanova rolled her eyes. "Pepper, please. Let him be, else I'm going to face all sort of uncomfortable questions regarding Barton when Stark hears of this."

"Oh, yes," Loki grinned, and turned toward Romanova. He caught the subtle wink as their eyes met, and he reminded himself to thank her later, preferably with the procurement of something sparkly with Tony's credit card. "Do tell us, _Natasha_," Loki leered, "does the Archer's aim always ring true?"

"Loki!" Pepper squeaked, and then the matron appeared to ask after dessert and coffee, and the conversation drifted on.

Later, much later, after the trio had returned to the tower with Potts taking her leave and Romanova retuning to her own floor, Loki entered the penthouse with his packages in tow, to find Tony curled up on the couch beside an empty donut box. After depositing his purchases in his room, Loki sat carefully beside the sleeping mortal and ran his fingers gently through the mortal's hair, watching as Tony's chest rose and fell with each breath, in and out.

"Jarvis, has he been asleep for long?" whispered Loki.

An equally quiet voice responded, "Not more than an hour, just shortly before you returned, Mr. Lie-Smith. Doctor Banner convinced Sir to take his pain medication after lunch, and the combined effect without caffeine has rendered him drowsy, as you see now."

"Very well. Please wake me if he awakes or if Bruce returns," Loki yawned, and he carefully eased Tony's head onto his lap, whilst his fingers threaded through the mortal's hair. The last thing he remembered before he closed his eyes was the feeling of Tony's warm, calm breaths against his jeans.


	28. Step 28 - Hugs

It took Tony the better part of two weeks to design and fit an exoskeleton arm brace that would fit over his injured shoulder and do the inventor's heavy lifting while his shoulder recovered, and for Loki, the damnable contraption couldn't have been finished sooner.

After working daily with the mortal in the lab, putting up with Tony's coffee-fueled binges and panic attacks, listening to the inventor's daily rant about Barton's hearing aid tech that had been destroyed in the battle but Barton _still_ refused to allow Tony to design new ones, and lifting and welding various objects and devices as Tony barked orders to the god from the sidelines, Loki had learned more about caffeine overdoses and Midgardian technology than he ever truly desired to know.

But Bruce had been adamant. Tony's arm must remain in the sling for two weeks while the ligaments healed, and after that, for another two months Tony was not to lift anything heavier than his coffee mug or a pint of milk. And if anyone, Bruce had said, would be able to keep Tony from further injuring himself by ignoring the good doctor's orders, it was Loki.

The brace that Tony invented was nothing short of brilliant, of course. Not only did it provide the lift and torque needed while Tony's shoulder healed, but Tony had also managed to include within its programming a series of exercises designed to gently regain movement so that the mortal wouldn't need to actually attend additional physical therapy sessions. Now, every time Tony sat still for a few moments before one of his monitors or with his StarkTab, the shoulder brace whirred into action, gently stretching and running through the exercise movements with the precise level of strength and torque needed for that stage of his recovery. Bruce had rolled his eyes at that, to Loki's amusement, and mumbled something about how Stark did everything he could to avoid leaving the workshop, but Pepper had already had Stark Industries begin the process for patenting the concept and a scaled-down version of the device as a medical therapy tool.

Which was why, for once, Loki found himself alone in the penthouse, while Tony met with Stark Industries' intellectual property attorneys and marketing department to demonstrate the capabilities and concepts of his design, when Agent Hill called him in to SHIELD.

Steve went with him, because Tony was still angry over Fury's treatment of Loki the last time he had visited, and, Loki mused, because Steve was the official leader of the Avengers Initiative. Not that Steve seemed bothered, though.

"So the biometrics testing is really simple," Steve said on the short drive over. "I did it last week. They'll strap you into a fancy metal chair and then ask some questions. Some are clearly wrong to gage your responses, that sort of thing. Then they asked me some questions designed to bring about strong emotions too, just to see what your reaction is, so don't be surprised. Supposedly Nat was able to fool the monitors when they tested it, but she denies that. I'll be there the whole time, and they're not supposed to ask about… you know who."

Loki rolled his eyes. "You can call him by his name, he's not Voldemort."

"Really?" the Captain asked, "So is his name really 'The Other' then? Is that what everyone called him?"

"I wasn't exactly inclined to ask after The Other's formal name during my stay, Captain," Loki responded coolly as he stepped out of the car.

Steve shrugged, a dusting of red creeping across his cheeks, and Loki sighed as the Captain caught his shoulder as they entered SHIELD's headquarters. "No hard feelings?"

"None," confirmed Loki, and he turned to see Agent Hill approaching. She examined his shoes, which Loki had worn one red and one green converse in honor of the upcoming festivities the following day.

"Gentlemen, we're ready for you," she gestured to a corridor off the entry, with one lone guard in black seated in an alcove along the way. "The chair will measures your responses to a few non-sequential questions, gage your reactions. Well, with some modifications made for your different physiology, of course, but, fortunately, for now you're human enough."

"The good Captain has already explained," Loki interjected, as Hill waived him forward. The room was small, not much more than an oddly placed silver chair and several monitors, and barely enough room for Hill and the Captain to stand behind the screens. The chair itself looked like a slightly more demonical version of the chairs Loki had observed on the television where mortals sat to clean their teeth, with locking braces on each armrest and the headrest and edges that glowed in a cool blue not different from the color of Stark's reactor at night. The room was cooler than normal Midgardian climates, and Loki crossed his arms to ward off the cold as he stepped forward. "And this device… this is the test that even Agent Romanova could not lie to?" Loki asked.

"Whoever told you that, Loki?" Hill grinned, her teeth barred like a wolf. "We'll start with some general questions for a baseline. What is your full name?"

Loki hesitated. "On Midgard, I suppose my name on the paperwork is Loki Lyesmith, but I am formerly known as Loki Odinson."

"Please list your immediate family," Hill continued.

Loki let the grin slide across his face as his eyes narrowed, "Immediate family? None living."

Hill blinked in surprise at the screen, before she rolled her eyes, "Loki, please list those who would consider themselves your immediate family."

"Frigga and Thor," Loki said.

"What's the difference between an egg and a rock?" Hill said.

Loki's eyebrows shot up. "What an odd question. How would that help you determine a baseline?"

"Just answer the question," Hill ordered. "First thing that comes to mind."

"Very well," Loki drummed his fingers on the chair, his hands twitching as he momentarily forgot he couldn't cross his arms while secured in the wristlets. "I presume eggs are edible on Midgard as they are in Asgard, so the difference is that eggs are soft, not edible, and not easy to transport. However, eggs are vastly superior for throwing at palace guards if one does not wish to cause injury. If injury is one's objective, though, a rock is—"

"That's enough."

Loki chuckled, "Really, shouldn't I continue? Are you sure this is for a baseline?"

"You wash up on a deserted island alone, and sitting on the sand is a box. What is in that box?"

"A functional Iron Man suit so I could fly away from the island. Or better yet, Stark in an Iron Man suit so I wouldn't have to hunch my shoulders over inside that midget's suit myself."

Steve's surprised chuckle echoed across the room, and Hill shot an exasperated look in the super soldier's direction before she continued, "Have you ever had any contact with Victor Von Doom?"

"Victor von Doom, also known as Doctor Doom, yes?" Loki interrupted.

"Mr. Lie-Smith, please just answer the question. Have you ever had any contact with Victor von Doom?"

"If he is the creator of those moronic robots that continually come out to play in the city, then I've had contact with him," Loki spat. "That idiot sent one of his robotic monstrosities to the tower and attempted to bodily apprehend me, to study my seidr. Stark says he thinks himself as some sort of Midgardian sorcerer, which is a ridiculous notion considering you mortals don't have the internal structure to sustain magic. Doom is also responsible for the attack a few weeks ago that injured Stark. For these actions alone, Doom _will_ suffer."

"Who's going to make him suffer, Loki? Last I checked the All-Father made you mortal for your extended Earth holiday," a voice from the back of the room demanded, and Loki grinned unexpectedly, and let his arms and shoulders relax against the uncomfortable metal chair.

"Why, Director Fury," Loki said, cocking his head to the side, "I didn't know you cared."

"Rogers, get out," demanded Fury as he strolled across the room.

"Uh. No?" Rogers said.

"Fine," Fury grinned, the skin behind his eye-patch tightening in a grotesque curve of scar tissue that reminded Loki of another one-eyed warrior. "But don't come crying to me when you learn something you didn't want to know about the Avengers' pet god."

"I see," Loki mused. "So now we get down to the real questions, Director?"

Steve looked nervous behind Hill, and Loki let the corner of his mouth slide up in the imitation of an amused smirk as Steve looked in his direction. Hill nodded once to Fury as she tapped out a command code on the computer.

"Norse mythology makes reference to Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent and supposed child of the giantess Angrboða and yourself. Does such a creature exist?" Hill asked.

Loki forced a laugh. "No. That's a tale that the Warriors Three made up one night when we were on Midgard in our youth. They were quite tipsy, if I remember."

He thought he saw the smallest uptick of Hill's lips in amusement, as she continued, but she didn't glance up from the readings on the screen before her. "And is the same true for the other two children of this supposed union, a wolf named Fenrir and a daughter named Hel?"

"Also false," Loki confirmed, and he couldn't help the grin that alighted on his face. "Are we going to discuss more of Norse mythology? Because I feel as though I should mention that the last time I was on Midgard before, well, _this _whole fiasco, I may have enjoyed a rather more creative license with events then."

"In other words, you were a child and you liked to tell stories," interrupted Hill, and this time Loki did see the grin forming on her carefully held composure.

"Yes, that would be accurate," he conceded.

"If Jörmungandr is not real, does that mean the concept of Ragnarök is likewise false?" Hill questioned.

"Every culture on Midgard has such a story," Loki explained. "Just the other day Tony mentioned how some Midgardian cultures believe the world might end when the Mayan calendar ended. Is it a surprise to learn that Asgard had such stories as well? These are children's stories, Agent."

"Have you ever been married before?" Hill asked.

Loki hesitated. His marriage had been political, and it obviously was not part of the legends if Hill didn't know enough to ask by name, but-

"Loki, have you ever been married before?"

"Once," He said plainly. "It was political. Arranged."

"Did the union produce any offspring?"

"Yes."

"How many children from that union, and where do they now reside now?"

Loki stared at his fingertips, white and smooth. The edge of his index finger skimmed the armrest and he fought the urge to curl his hands into fists, to let the sadness overwhelm him as he thought about his sons. Blue upon blue waivered, but did not press forward, and Loki let the sterile environment and smells of SHIELD's office wash away his memories from that day.

"I do not wish to discuss this matter, Agent," he said, and he struggled to maintain his façade as Steve whispering angrily to Fury and Hill, before Fury made a dismissive gesture and stepped forward to watch the monitor results.

"SHIELD has released you to the custody of the Avengers, the All-Father agreed to permit you to serve probation for your acts against Earth but you could have served probation on Asgard instead. What are you still doing here?" Fury asked.

"I wish Earth no harm," Loki said carefully.

"Oh really? Then what are you still doing here? You know your old buddies are going to come looking for you."

"Director," Rogers started, but Loki waved a hand dismissively.

"I have no intention to return to the hands of Thanos or The Other, ever. But I believe you've already understood that their attack on Midgard was not my doing, nor was it within my power to prevent it. Nor will disposing of me prevent their return here."

Fury stood to pace in the tight space of the room, and Loki tracked his movements. The man was unpredictable, Loki thought, with tight lines and angry jerking steps that belayed the underlying grace and power of his form.

"What is your relationship with Anthony Stark?" Hill continued.

Loki rolled his eyes. "Truly?"

"Answer the question, Real Power, otherwise our deal is off," Fury snarled.

"It's complicated," Loki gnawed on his lower lip. "Tony is a good friend, more than a friend. He, ah, understands me."

"Just a friend?" Fury taunted. "Do you actually love him? Care about him at all?"

Loki bit back a growl. "I'd think that would be private even from SHIELD, Director."

"Not private if my consultant is somehow being manipulated." Fury retorted.

"With all due respect, sir, Tony is not being manipu-"

"Stay out of this, Rogers!" Fury snapped.

"What would you like me to say, Director? Yes, as your media claims, I am with Earth's most eligible bachelor."

"Are you having sexual relations with Stark?"

Loki smirked again. "Define sexual relations."

"It's not a trick question, Lie-Smith."

"What would you like me to say?" Loki jeered, before he licked his lips, "Do you want me to say that Stark is very _talented_ with his mouth? That he has quite a _sharp_ tongue? Would those answers satisfy that _itch_ you have, Director Fury?"

"Are you fucking him?" Fury leaned forward, letting his fists rest on the table as he leveled a glare at Loki. It might have been intimidating, but Loki remembered with sudden clarity the man's attempts to interrogate him when he was held in the glass box, when he had done nothing but tease the god with his captivity, but had never hurt him when he was SHIELD's prisoner.

"I'm not sure how that's any of your concern, Director Fury," Steve said, and Loki was amused to note that the super soldier's cheeks and ears were flushed.

"Rogers, I have a right to know just how far _my_ consultant, for _my _organization, that defends _my_ planet, has gone with the alien bastard who last led an invading force against _my_ planet," Fury needled. "And if Real Power wants asylum on _my_ planet, he will play by _my _rules."

"Fine. We are together sexually, if you must know," Loki snorted, as he made a show of studying his fingernails. "Is that a problem, Director?"

But Fury leaned back and barked a laugh. "Together sexually, you say. What is this, middle school? You mean to tell me that you haven't _actually _fucked around with Stark, after sleeping in his bed for how long? Stark, the man who has had so many one-night stands that even SHIELD cannot track them all down, and he won't even _touch_ you?"

Loki blanched. "What?"

Fury waved him away. "We're done here. Bye Real Power, it was fun."

Loki watched in confusion as the man strolled from the room, his coat billowing behind him as Hill came forward to disengage the armbands and other monitoring devices. Was there a reason that mortals—that Pepper and Fury and Barton—kept asking after this? Maybe sex meant more on Midgard than in Asgard, and Loki's chest constricted painfully at the thought, maybe without sex on Midgard, a mortal's affections could not be gaged properly? That without it—

And Tony had said that he wasn't supposed to touch Loki, hadn't he? Wasn't that what he said? Or that he wasn't supposed to_ be_ with Loki instead? His stomach clenched painfully, as though one of the dark elves' poisons had wormed inside and cemented his insides together, burning through the sensitive flesh like it were nothing of consequence.

For the briefest of moments, Loki wished for Thor's presence; the bulky idiot had always understood social graces on Asgard better than Loki, Thor could tell Loki what was expected on Midgard. Could tell Loki that he was overthinking things, that no such rules existed. Didn't Thor have his own mortal, the woman that he'd met in London with Tony; is that why she was still so attached to the blond oaf? But no, her dark-haired friend had said they'd not consummated their relationship either, so that must mean that this was not as important on Midgard as—

Steve touched his shoulder, and Loki looked up to realize that Hill had already left and his hands were tingling and tinted almost blue. He closed his fingers into tight fists.

"Tell me Captain," Loki sniffed, "this is the second time recently that someone has demanded to know what form my relationship with Stark takes. Is this a, ah, 'thing' on Midgard?"

"I dunno," Rogers sighed. "I'm just as lost as you, Loki. Back in my day, no one would even ask. Unless they were anglin' for a punch."

"I confess, Fury's line of questioning makes me… uneasy. And the worst part," Loki began, "is that Fury was right. Tony hasn't— We aren't— Why won't he touch me? Perhaps I_ am_ as monstrous as—"

"Hey, that's not true. You know that," Rogers interjected.

"But Tony said, he _said_, he wasn't supposed to touch me—" Loki's voice sounded high-pitched and stressed even to his own ears. "Why?"

"Ask Tony," Rogers said, and the gentle pressure on his shoulder tightened. "I'm sure he didn't mean it like that. Was he even sober?"

Loki blinked, and thought about it. "No."

"Exactly," Rogers glared at the door that Fury had left through. "Fury's trying to upset you. Maybe for the test? Don't let him."

Loki sighed, but stood and squared his shoulders. "Are we free to depart now? I wish to return to the penthouse and the company of more predictable mortals."

Steve chuckled, but Loki could tell the man was uncomfortable as he guided Loki out from SHIELD's offices. Hill wasn't anywhere to be found as the two quickly made their way past security and into a waiting taxi outside.

* * *

Tony found him later on the balcony, seated on one of the fancy outdoor chairs that the billionaire had insisted on procuring when he discovered how much Loki liked to sit outside, a green blanket wrapped around his shoulders and his hair whipped in wild tangles by the cold December winds. Without a word, Tony used his prosthetic-enhanced arm to pull Loki up from the chair and guided the half-frozen Frost Giant inside.

"Damn it, Lokes," Tony cursed as he pulled the taller man towards the couch, and Loki absently noticed that two steaming mugs sat on the coffee table, one with his tea and the second smelling strongly of Tony's favorite coffee. "If you're going to sit outside in December, at least change to your Jotun form. Shit, your skin is freezing."

"The cold never bothered me," Loki tried to pull away, but Tony rested his arm across the god's shoulders and pulled him down into the couch with his enhanced strength. Loki relented, and the mortal sank against the cushions beside him.

"Yeah, yeah. Listen," Tony's fingers from his good arm drummed nervously on his knee. "Steve came by my workshop. So… Uh. We gotta talk, Snowflake."

Loki closed his eyes and let his chin fall forward, his tangled hair curtaining around his face in a dark wave. Several hours of sulking on the balcony had done nothing to assuage his worries, no, instead he'd thought of every single gesture, every touch, and every moment with the mortal he'd come to find the presence of so comforting. And nothing added up, to Loki, nothing made sense. But now, he wanted to talk. Mortification burned in his chest and he inhaled sharply, letting the comforting smells wash over him, memorizing them, sinking into the smell of Tony's coffee, of his warmth and the feeling of his body lined so close to Loki's, where his hip and knee and thigh touched the god's own leg. Memorizing that gentle pressure, because _nothing good_ ever came from your lover asking to talk.

"Fuck, this has not gotten easier," Tony muttered, and Loki peeked around his tangled waves to see the anxious turn of Tony's muddy brown eyes as the mortal stared at the windows, the last edges of the day reflected like a rain-dirtied mirror, and Loki felt the first of what would surely be many tears slip down his cheek.

"Thing is, I sorta fucked this up, Lokes," Tony said, and the smaller man's leg fidgeted, his knee bouncing up and down in a anxious twitch. It seemed to Loki like Stark wanted to be anywhere else, anywhere but the penthouse couch with Loki.

"It's fine," Loki whispered. "I can move to one of the other floors, there are plenty of rooms."

"What?" Tony turned, his enhanced arm tightening almost imperceptibly around Loki's shoulders. "What are you saying? Lo-Lo, I don't want-"

"You don't want _me_, Stark, that much is obvious." Loki pulled away from Tony's embrace, careful not to strain the mortal's injured arm but with enough force to avoid the pull of the metal apparatus as he stood. "You don't have to say it, Stark."

The shadows stretched out along the floor, and Loki felt his heart beat in time with the thickness of the air, stagnant and black, and Loki stood suddenly. Tony's left hand fastened around his wrist, the exoskeleton structure of his temporary prosthetic curled in smooth metal around his wrist against Loki's pulse points, and beneath the metal running the length of Tony's fingers he felt the mortal's flesh press firmly into his wrist.

"Let go," Loki growled.

Tony blinked, then swiped at his eyes with his free hand, and Loki was surprised to see tears when Tony's hand moved. "Loki. Why would you think that? What—" Stark choked back a sob. "What have I done?"

"Not 'supposed' to," mimicked Loki in an ugly tone. "Back in the tent, you said you weren't 'supposed to' be with me. Why? Because I'm the monster that invaded earth? The nightmare of Asgard? It's enough to kiss and tell with monsters, I know, but—"

Tony made a strangled-sounding noise that dissolved into a giggle, and Loki let out a frustrated shout as he wrenched his arm free from Tony's grasp. His lungs constricted, it was all black and gray and red pounding against his skull, and Loki screamed his rage as he reached out and and flipped the glass coffee table across the room. The glass top shattered along with the coffee mugs, flinging broken fragments and liquid in all directions. In the corner of his eye he could see Stark raising his arms to cover his face from a shower of fragments as the mortal cursed, and Loki wondered at the detachment he felt, the fact that his anger had numbed everything else, that his regret felt so far away at that moment. It was like watching one of the mortal world's moving pictures, vested in the characters but impossible to move, to care beyond watching and observing.

Stark continued to giggle hysterically, and Loki's shoulders shook with anger.

"It's not amusing, you ant!" the god shouted, as he heaved a great breath and his long fingers curled tightly against his palms. "Tell me Stark, are you _mocking _me, too? Do you call Fury and laugh about how the poor misguided monster you've adopted in your tower thinks he is wanted, when you have supposedly had more lovers than SHIELD can locate and won't—" his voice cracked, and Loki inhaled shakily, "wont even touch me? When you aren't 'supposed to' touch me?"

Stark stood, and Loki watched as the genius clenched his jaw so tightly that Loki was sure his teeth would crack. The god's eyes fell closed, defeated. This was it. As Tony's coffee soaked into the cushions of the couch, the dark leather dappled with wet spots, Loki felt the physical weight in his chest, and he exhaled. It was over. It had never begun. It was surely over now, regardless.

He jerked in surprise as arms encircled his chest, one clad in a metal framework, and the arms tugged Loki forward until the gap between his body and Stark's had disappeared entirely. He felt the mortal shudder against is chest and Loki bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, as Tony's right hand snaked up to tangle in Loki's hair and pulled the god's head down to rest against the shorter man's forehead.

"Stark," he whispered. "Let me go."

"Shut up," Tony growled, "Shut up, you fucking idiot."

Loki swallowed, and shivered against the warmth of Tony's embrace, the cold finally leaching from his skin as Tony held him pressed to his chest. The arc reactor was a firm smooth surface through Loki's shirt, cold against even his chilled skin, and the lip of the device bit uncomfortably into the taller man's ribs.

"Did you know," the genius's voice was muffled against Loki's shoulder, "that there's a science behind the length of a hug? Statistically, a hug must be at least twenty seconds long for it to be effective."

"I don't understand," Loki muttered, as his arms came to rest loosely around Stark's shoulders. Tears streaked down his face.

"Of course you don't. You're from the mumbo-jumbo land of magic, not science. But scientists have found that in order to benefit from a hug—elevated serotonin levels, lower blood pressure, there's more but I can't remember them all—the hug needs to last at least twenty seconds. That is, for humans. I'm going to go ahead and guess—not scientific yet, since we haven't done a bunch of experiments, but I'm going to go ahead and guess that for ex-prince Asgardians who are actually Jotuns, it needs to be at least a full minute-long hug to experience the same physio-chemical reactions. Maybe longer. We'll experiment. Write up a huge scientific paper that we'll publish on Asgard. Are there even peer review journals on Asgard?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about, Stark," Loki sighed, his cheek resting against the side of Tony's head, and the god inhaled the smell of Tony's shampoo, of his cologne and aftershave. The fingers in his hair uncurled slightly, and Loki lifted his head to see Tony's warm chocolate eyes studying him. There were identical tear tracks down Tony's cheeks.

"I'm sorry," the mortal continued. "I should have explained earlier. It was something I read, something about when suicide survivors should begin a new relationship after an attempt. I mean, you've been sex on two legs since you first strutted across my living room floor and I've had it bad ever since, even before we got that bad mojo out of your head. I didn't—" Tony looked away, "I didn't want to rush you. You're gorgeous and scary brilliant, and I honestly stalled on finishing this stupid arm brace because I liked having you around the workshop more often, without working on something fucking scary or depressing like the HERB Finder. But I keep expecting that any minute now you're going to wake up and figure out what a fuck-up I am. No joke, Lokes, I'm a fuck-up. I can't keep plants alive, much less relationships. Ask anyone. I practically paid my last girlfriend to stick around while I got the guts to ask her out, and I ended up giving her my whole damn company to run anyway."

Loki let out a watery chuckle, his arms tightening around Tony's shoulders. "I should think Potts would injure you for saying that, Stark."

Tony sucked in a quick breath. "Oh, fuck. She would, and probably with a spoon too. Let's never tell her I said that. Seriously, never ever."

"Agreed," Loki whispered against Tony's hair, and he closed his eyes.

"See? I'm terrible with people," Tony muttered into Loki's shoulder, before warm lips trailed across his neck in a slow line, hesitating between each kiss, and Loki shivered against the gentle pressure.

"We good?" Tony whispered as he trailed kisses along Loki's jaw line. "You get that I want you here, right?"

Loki turned to catch Tony's mouth against his own. It was perfect, perfect and warm and cleansing, and Loki twined his arms more tightly around Tony's shoulders, one hand reaching up to brush through the inventor's hair, feeling the bristling-soft texture of the mortal's goatee against his fingers as he directed the angle of the kiss. And Loki kissed him, reveling in the warmth as the inventor matched his pace, unhurried and gentle, teasing the mortal's lips with darts of his tongue and teeth, as Tony pulled him towards their bed. The god whimpered at the taste of Tony as their tongues met finally, slightly salty and rich, roasted coffee and something spicier competing across his lips.

Tony's knees gave way against the mattress and he held on to the god's shoulders, pulling Loki down until the god fell forward with him. Loki groaned into the kiss, Tony's warmth pressing firmly into him as he straddled Tony's lap. Loki sighed as Tony deepened the kiss, and Loki felt his own answering arousal as calloused and metal-tipped hands slipped beneath his shirt and across his chest. He unbuttoned the first few buttons of Tony's shirt, for once grateful that the injury had forced the mortal out of his usual worn-out t-shirts.

Tony gasped, breaking the kiss as the genius reached with one hand for the clasp on Loki's jeans. "So I'm sorta still injured here, Snowflake, you're gonna have to do all the work this time. You don't mind, do you?"

Loki pulled back to gaze at Tony. His lips were red and swollen, and his back arched off the bed as Loki's fingers skimmed across the bulge straining against his jeans. But Tony's amber eyes were wide and curious, and watching Loki with such an intensity that the god didn't know what to do. He felt exposed, as though he had been taken apart on the metal table in the workshop and analyzed by the holographic projector, and his insides were displayed in wide-screen precision with Tony's 3-D mapping tools. As though the genius had run a hand over every surface of his soul and mapped the contours and edges.

"You want me to enter you?" he whispered, awed.

Tony lifted his hips as Loki tugged at his grease-covered jeans. "Yeah, sure. We can take turns later if that's what you prefer, either way," Tony grinned and wagged his eyebrows. "That is, if you don't mind _deigning _to have sex with a mere mortal? Always time to change your mind, Lokes. No pressure."

Loki rolled his eyes as he ignored the fear he saw in Tony's expression, the painfully obvious hope in Stark's eyes as he waited for Loki to reject him. What a mess, the god thought as he licked a perfect stripe down the mortal's abdomen. His lips lazily took the mortal in his mouth and he hollowed out his cheeks, reveling in the surprised yelp before he licked the length of Tony's cock and reached for the nightstand drawer.

"I think I'll manage, Stark."


	29. Step 29 - Pregnancies and New Life

Waking up, everything was both different and the same.

Tony was just as tangled against him, arms and legs akimbo as the billionaire apparently was incapable of keeping to his side of the bed. The sheets were twisted in tight circles around them, in part because ever since he'd injured his shoulder, Tony tended to wake frequently in the night, before he would turn over and sprawl back on Loki's chest. And the curtains were drawn just as tight against the outside world, concealing the way the winter sun crept across the sky in the late morning hour.

He didn't want to move.

The mass of sheets and blankets curled against him, before groaning, and Loki reached with one arm to untangle his lover before the idiot would strain his shoulder doing so. The metal brace that the genius had invented sat on the other side of the room on its charging mat, a low level green light indicating that it was ready for Tony's abuses of the day.

A scruffy face popped free from the blankets, bleary brown eyes looking up and blinking in the curtain-darkened room.

"Jarv? S'Christmas?"

"It is 10:07 AM, Sir. Captain Rogers asked that I remind you and Mr. Lie-Smith of the Christmas lunch he has planned in a few hours."

"Time?" Tony mumbled.

"He has scheduled the lunch for 1 PM, Sir, but might I also mention that that Colonel Rhodes and Miss Potts are anticipated earlier."

Tony's forehead came to rest against Loki's shoulder, and Loki felt the mortal's warm breath as he huffed. "S'still early."

Loki let a lazy smile pass across his lip. "Then sleep."

Tony shifted again, careful not to put the weight on his shoulder as he moved closer to Loki. Loki helped move the blankets, and waited for Tony to settle back against him to rest, when something more firm and insistent poked his leg instead.

"Too late," Tony whispered as he pressed forward for a messy morning kiss, his breath pungent even from this distance, "already awake."

Loki huffed a laugh against the mortal's lips before he pulled Tony against his chest, pressing himself firmly against the mortal's growing interest. Tony smelled of sex and ice and scotch, and Loki's senses felt heady as he nibbled along Tony's jawline.

"What, no kisses?" Tony complained as Loki sucked a patch of skin above the mortal's collarbone.

"Your breath is vile, Stark."

"Really?" Tony ground his hips, the friction forcing a groan from Loki. "Don't see you actually complaining, Snowflake."

"You also don't see me actually kissing you, do you?" Loki retorted, his long fingers wrapping around himself and Tony as he coated them both liberally.

"Seems like," Tony groaned as Loki's fingers travelled his length several times, "things are working out alright for you anyway."

"I can think of several places I'd rather your vile morning-breath be spent. On my tongue is not one of them."

"Several? You mean just one?" Tony licked his lips. "Your loss though. Maybe if you're nice to me-" Loki gave a particularly firm twist, and Tony cursed before he batted the god's hands away and took them both in his right hand. The god relaxed as Stark worked them over together, his hands returning to the smaller man's waist to keep the mortal from resting any weight on his injured shoulder. Stark's hands were calloused and firm, strong from his work with machines and just as delicate, and even with such short practice the mortal had quickly learned the right strength and pressure to make Loki scream.

He grunted in surprise as Tony released him suddenly, before the genius scooted forward and lifted up on his knees to slowly lower himself down on Loki. As the genius moved his hips sideways, Loki arched his back, involuntarily lifting his hips and Stark let out an obscene noise in response. The heat was astonishing; it was as though Loki had never been warm in his entirely too long life until that moment, until he suddenly was filling and filled and felt like he was both burning and being reborn in the same instant.

Loki palmed Tony's cock in quick, efficient moves, adding in a swirl at the end to the sensitive underside as the genius swayed back and forth on his knees. It was too much, too much and it would never be enough, and Loki looked up to find his lover's warm brown eyes watching him, watching his face, before Tony twisted his hips again and Loki was lost into the rhythm and sensations. Soon after, Stark gave a gasp shortly before Loki, and the warmth was overwhelming, pure and white and starshine, as the god followed him into the white abyss.

He didn't remember what happened after, but when he next opened his eyes, he saw Tony with a towel around his waist and his shoulder brace fastened in place, brushing his teeth. His hair was freshly cleaned and the genius smelled of vanilla and something more potent, against the wafting odor of coffee brewing from somewhere nearby.

"So, I can't decide. Do I send Fury a fruit basket or a bag of dog shit?" Tony mused, his fingers running through Loki's hair as he came to perch on the edge of the bed. "That reminds me. Jarvis, get Dum-E up here to clean up, will ya? And order me a new coffee table."

"As you wish, Buttercup," Jarvis responded, and Tony absently flipped the bird vaguely in the direction of the ceiling.

Loki grimaced as he pushed up to sit against the headboard. "I am sorry, Tony. I seem to be detrimental to your furnishings."

The mortal shrugged. "I've done worse myself." He stood and paced to the sink, and Loki heard the sound of water filling the basin, before Tony returned momentarily, clad only in a pair of his favored red boxers.

"On the one hand, Steve said Fury really freaked you out. One point for a bag of dog shit," Tony said, as Loki stood and grimaced as he sniffed himself. He needed a shower, he smelled too much of Tony and mechanical grease, among other scents.

"On the other hand, we've moved past whatever roadblocks I inadvertently set up. One point for a fruit basket. I wonder if I can get the caterer to add a bag of dog shit to a fruit basket? Nah," Tony grumbled, "will probably violate some city code or something."

A clear glass wall open on both ends separated the shower from the rest of the bathroom, so that Loki could see the rest of the bathroom area and the entrance ot the closet as the water fell from above. Loki watched through the shower wall as Tony paced in and out of the closet, coffee in hand. Tony had managed to find a clean pair of jeans that he was working up his hips one-handed, while his injured arm balanced the contents of a coffee mug, and Loki smirked as the genius hopped from foot to foot, the red boxers peaking over the waistband.

"I know!" Tony snapped his fingers, his amber eyes sparkling like they did right before something exploded in the workshop, "maybe we can send a fruit basket with a nice card that appropriately conveys our feelings. Something like 'thanks for the assist, now fuck off and die, you sanctimonious prick'."

"I don't see why he deserves a gift," Loki rolled his eyes, the hot water trailing through his hair and over his back and shoulders. The heat of the water brought pins and needles to his skin, and he let the tension fall away as he shampooed his hair. It really had gotten too long, Loki mused as he tried to detangle with his fingers. "We would have resolved our misunderstanding, without destruction of your furniture."

"Or any embarrassing sentimental displays, but who's keeping track?" Tony teased, and Loki stuck a hand up against the shower glass, mimicking the obscene expression Tony was fond of bestowing upon Barton and his AI.

Tony laughed, before he continued. "But humor me. What else did Cyclops ask about? Can you tell me the super secret questions?" Tony had perched himself on the bathroom counter across from the shower with his coffee mug in hand, and Loki wiped the glass with one hand to study the mortal through the steam-fogged view.

"Something about the difference between an egg and a rock, old Norse legends, those sorts of enquiries," Loki said finally, as he rinsed out the last of the conditioner. "Though Hill did not ask after one of the more obvious legends."

"What? Not the one with the horse, right?"

Loki poked his head around the glass wall. "Hand me a towel if you're going to loiter, Stark. And yes, I though that was one of the more obvious ones. Though it seemed she didn't know about my arranged marriage to Sigyn in my youth. I should very much like to see what Midgardian sources have preserved in their writings about Asgard."

Tony handed him a clean towel, one of the larger white ones that covered the taller man like a cape or blanket when wrapped around his shoulders.

"You were in an arranged marriage? Really? That I can understand, I suppose, you're centuries old and Asgard's kinda like if feudal England had survived the industrial resolution," Tony mused. "But back up a second. Back to the horse. You didn't _actually _have sex with a horse and later birth an eight-leg horse-baby that the All-Daddy now rides around on Asgard," Tony chucked. "Right?"

Loki pursed his lips as he wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped inside the closet. He twisted his wet hair into a loose bun, and fished around in his drawer for clean undergarments, pulling on a dark blue pair, before he realized Tony had come to stand behind him in the closet and was staring at the god with something akin to panic in his expression.

"Loki," Tony's measured voice echoed around the wood paneling of the billionaire's closet. "Please tell me that's not the _one _mythological tale that's actually true."

Loki stepped into his trousers, his eyes intent upon the fasteners, before he reached for a long sleeved forest green polo shirt that Tony had procured for him. He finished the outfit with simple black Converse that he toed on, before he sighed and stood to meet Tony's worried gaze.

"It's not like I remember it, Stark. I was a horse at the time. The form of the mare I took that day, her memories do not work the same as ours. With my seidr, I'm a gifted shape-shifter, and while I retain some characteristics of my original form, in some shapes the underlying structure of the beast determines the mind's capacity."

Tony swore, and Loki reached out to catch the mortal's arm. "Truly, Tony. I don't remember it. And without my, ah, ruse that day, Asgard would have been in danger. I did what needed to be done. Please don't let this ruin our festivities today."

"Lokes," Tony drummed his fingers nervously across the reactor, "I get that you want to believe that, and that it was a long time ago, but don't you see? Don't you see this— that Asgard has always used—taken what it needed, when it was convenient? How is that _right_? How is that _fair_? What has _Thor_ ever done, how has he ever been sacrificed for the greater good? Has he been married off? Raped by a giant horse?"

Loki shrugged. "It was hardly rape, Tony. Don't be so dramatic. And Thor has to be king eventually, I suppose. Some would argue that includes its own sacrifices. But I was the second son, surely you must know that's the reality for the second born in the nobility, even here on Midgard? Odin always said we were both destined to be kings. I just, I never expected it. Never was good enough. But there were ways I could help the kingdom, with my seidr, with my tricks. Ways to help that Thor never could."

He hadn't expected Tony's snarl as the mortal began pacing the length of the room while Loki toweled and combed out his hair. It was strange, Loki thought, Tony's anger at something that had happened so long ago. Without warning, Tony spun around to face Loki and looked at the taller man with such devastation, that the god couldn't resist stepping forward and placing a hand on Tony's arm.

"Whatever it is that now troubles you, I wish it wouldn't," Loki muttered.

"Is this why your face lit up like a Christmas tree last night, when I said I'd be on bottom?"

Loki's face fell. "Not exactly. It was merely that your, ah, willingness caught me by surprise, that's all."

"Uh huh," Tony scowled. "Why?"

Loki turned to fidget with his bun, twisting the wet hair into the towel.

"Lo-Lo?" Tony asked again.

"It's not done on Asgard," Loki responded finally.

"What do you mean, not done? As in no one has sex on Asgard? Or no one has _that_ kind of sex on Asgard?"

"The latter, Stark. Or if they do, they don't discuss it. It's not considered proper for a warrior."

"Well that's bullshit," Tony grumbled. "So let me guess. While you're out doing whatever dirty work Odin needs done that pure, golden boy Thor can't handle, you had to hide your lovers or they pretended nothing had ever happened? And the rest of the time, you were in some forced marriage with some tart from another realm, while Thor ran around womanizing and acting like the perfect warrior and sticking his dick in whatever took his fancy? Meanwhile, if a warrior sticks his dick in as many holes as possible, it's totally okay, as long as none of those dicks stick back. How am I doin' here, Snowflake?"

"You are not wrong," Loki grimaced, feeling the unfamiliar stirrings of bile in the back of his throat.

"Sir, Colonel Rhodes has arrived," Jarvis interrupted, and Tony cursed once, reaching for a shirt.

"Help me with this, Lo," Tony grumbled, and Loki turned to maneuver the t-shirt over Tony's brace, the range of motion hadn't recovered sufficiently to allow an ease of rotation. Loki helped to ease the armhole over Tony's injured arm and tugged on the hem to bunch up the material over Tony's head. "We're not done with this conversation though. I mean, if you're a natural shape-shifter with your hocus-pocus, is the fact that you could get pregnant as a horse magic-based or because of your Jotun physiology? You said that Jotuns didn't seem to have differentiation in sex or gender like the Aesir, does that mean Jotuns are even limited by the same gender-norm definitions as Asgard?"

Loki tugged on the hem, "Hold still you ridiculous idiot, it's hard enough getting this on without you squirming."

"I mean it Lokes, I'm not gonna drop this."

"Of course you won't," grumbled Loki. "But I don't know how to answer you. I only learned of my true heritage shortly before I let go of the bi-frost."

"Tony!" a deep voice shouted from the lounge, followed by the bang of a door slamming open, "Tony, man, you in here?"

"Fuck," Tony hissed, his shirt caught over the metal frame as Loki struggled to free him. "Be careful!"

"Then stop squirming, you oaf," Loki growled, and he flinched viciously when the door to the master suite banged open just as the god managed to pull the shirt over Tony's head. Loki turned as Tony finished pulling the shirt down over his abs, only to find a trim-looking man standing by the door with a Midgardian weapon trained on Loki's head.

"What the actual fuck, Rhodey. Stop pointing a gun at my boyfriend."

The man, Loki presumed it was Colonel Rhodes, looked at the ceiling and rolled his eyes, but holstered the weapon. "Have you seen your living room? I thought you 'd been kidnapped again or something."

"Kidnapped?" Loki glowered at Stark. "Again?"

"Long story, Snowflake. Later," Tony clasped Rhodes across the shoulder. "Let's take our introductions out of the bathroom, yes?"

"And sit where? I'm telling you, man, it looks like a bomb went off in there."

"Naw, not a bomb. Just Loki," Tony grinned, wagging his eyebrows as Loki trailed after the pair. "It's all fine now. And I own the rest of this tower, I'm sure we can find some place else to sit while Dum-E cleans up. Speaking of that," Tony looked around the living room and Loki came to stand beside the pair, "where's Dum-E, Jarv? I thought he'd get the glass at least picked up by now."

Loki winced as his eyes traveled over the damage; glass and debris from the table were scattered over ten feet away across the black tile floors, with visible stains in the couch cushions and throw rug.

"My apologies, Sir. I had intended to request Dum-E's presence after you and Mr. Lie-Smith departed for the communal floors."

Tony turned and took Loki's elbow in hand, steering the god with him and Rhodes towards the elevator. "Loki, meet Rhodey, my oldest friend. Rhodey, meet Loki, my divine, _literally divine_, space alien boyfriend."

"Nice to meet you, Loki," and as the elevator doors closed behind them, Rhodes extended his hand. Loki hesitated only for a few seconds before he reached out and shook it. "Hurt my idiot friend here, and I'll kill you."

"Hey!" Tony protested. "It's Christmas! I thought we made a 'no death threats on Christmas' rule!"

"For you, Tony, there's always an exception," Rhodes grinned. "But seriously, man, nice to meet you. Lay off the destruction and invading forces and we're good."

Tony barked a laugh. "I'll do my best, Rhodey, but destruction is a given."

"I meant him." Rhodes deadpanned.

"No, you didn't," Tony grinned, as he threaded his fingers through Loki's, "You only pretended you meant him."

"Okay, you got me. Loki, stop him from destroying things and injuring himself, and we're good."

"I try," Loki sighed. "But I do so like the explosions."

"Fuck both of you, I'm too old for this shit," Rhodes said, and Tony's laughter followed them out into the communal living room.

Except for Rogers banging away in the kitchen, the floor appeared empty, and Rhodes and Tony bustled off to grab breakfast beverages while Loki sank into the couch beside the Avengers' Christmas tree. Bruce had explained the traditions behind the decor, but Loki was still amazed at the number of colorful packages beneath the tree, of vast sizes and shapes. What a strange concept, the idea of gifting those you cared for with presents to commemorate not the birthday of a dead god, but the spirit of that god's supposed life as a mortal.

He fingered an ornament from the tree, a small cradle with a baby in it. It'd been so long, so many years since he'd thought of the boys. Since he'd thought of Sigyn, of Sleipnir.

He'd lied to Tony, of course. He remembered everything, every moment, even if it was gray and fuzzy in places after all these years. Mating with that giant's horse, Loki shuddered, he could do with forgetting that, but the time after, when he had escaped, still brought a smile to his face. He remembered running through the fields, afterward, with child and unable to return to his Aesir form. He'd felt free, free from his obligations at the palace, of never living up to the expectations of his so-called family and friends, free from everything. Until he'd returned home months later, guiding a foal into the city and muddied with dirt and grime.

It had been centuries until Thor had stopped laughing every time one of his friends made a horse joke or neighed when Loki entered a room.

"Loki, come carry your own tea and donuts! Rhodey won't let me, he thinks I'm weak!"

"I said injured, you hypocrite!"

"Will the both of you please just get out of my kitchen?" Rogers snapped.

"Hey! It's my tower!" Tony shouted, and Loki chuckled, imagining the indignant look on his lover's face.

"Loki, come entertain your boyfriend before he ruins Christmas lunch!" Rhodes' voice called out, and Loki chuckled to himself, before he stood and turned to find the others, a hopeful grin careworn as he trudged towards the kitchen.


End file.
